Ears to Hear Us
by Mellifluousness
Summary: Not everyone gets a sweet deal with a magic sword, a couple of sidekicks and a nice, solid sorcerer to lop the head off. Who wants their only weapon to be a truth no-one wants to hear? You need soldiers of a stranger sort to fight wars that aren't happening. Take a good look at this clockwork world, because it's about to start turning the other way.
1. Light Sleeper

A dead woman sleeps on the couch, breath slow and steady.

How she manages this is a mystery. It's a couch that's sure seen a lot, if 'a lot' is a kind of rabid beast with enormous claws and a grudge against couches. It's also seen numerous attempts at patching up its gaping rips with ever more hideous patches of fabric. To top it all off, it's been exposed to enough damp that its sprawls of exposed stuffing are black-green with mould. It exudes a gentle scent of must.

The rest of the room's furniture attempt to keep their distance and pretend they don't know it. On the other two sides of the gleaming coffee table are beige armchairs, their cushions thick enough to swallow small children. Grey carpet slinks from underneath them and draws to a halt in front of the kitchen's linoleum tiles, which are surrounded by a granite benchtop and the usual kitchen appliances. Refrigerator gleaming black, oven that could blind, cupboard, dishwasher, sink, drawers. No ice crusts the inside of the fridge because it has never been turned on. The oven knows no heat more fierce than the frosty room temperature. No scraps of food clog the sink. No bowls of fruit sit on the bench. Not so much as a coat of dust fills the pantry's shelves. No light from the garden bathes the windowsill above the sink because there has never been a window there.

A dead woman rolls over on the couch, pulling her duvets tighter around her.

Perpendicular to the couch, opposite the two armchairs against the longest side of the coffee table, is a mahogany TV cabinet. Like most surfaces in the room it could blind anyone unfortunate enough to look at it in full light. On it sits the blank eye of a widescreen television, and the very observant might make out padlocks on its drawers. They do not hold together two doors that would otherwise open outwards, of course. They just hang off the handles. It's the thought that counts.

And opposite the couch hang deep grey-green curtains, which cover the room's only window. In fact it's a glass sliding door, unmarked by dog claws or the inexplicable smears that pristine glass surfaces seem to grow. Were one to draw the curtains, liquid sunlight would flood the room, gilding every gleaming surface.

But it's terribly rude to draw the curtains on a sleeping dead woman. This is practically common knowledge. Darkness broods over her.

If the kind of person who sneaks into women's bedrooms to look out their windows twitched aside the curtains, they might be surprised by the iron bars latticing the glass. Fortunately this surprise would not last long as the view is much more interesting. The bars are of course a safety measure, found by multiple parties to work infallibly. Their use is completely justified. Ask anyone. Only don't, because what they don't know won't hurt them.

A safety measure against what, you ask? That's an excellent question, and it deserves an equally excellent change of subject.

How about that, there's one right now! Just look at how effortlessly the subject was changed to how now would be a good time to be the dead woman.

Would you like to be the dead woman?

Too late, it already happened.

You are now the sleeping dead woman, and it's about time you woke up. If you sleep in much longer you could be _late_, gods forbid! You are so utterly distraught about this that it loops right back around to not caring in the slightest. Were you anyone else, now might be a good time to examine your physique, or perhaps your background. Maybe your name or age. My, just think of all the interesting things that could be found out about you right now.

Thing is, you're not anyone else. You are godsdamn _mysterious_, and you will _remain_ that way, so help you. Were you awake, you'd be expecting visitors. They're going to come whether you expect them or not so that doesn't really matter.

Ah, here they are now, two high whispers outside the door. Wasn't the door mentioned? It's barely worth considering, a boring white thing on the other side of the room from the window. Nothing spectacular about it. There's a peephole in it, which is completely irrelevant. The voices stop, and there is a jangle of keys. One scrapes as it's flailed uselessly against the lock. The knob turns. The door is opened. You mumble something about hair care products. A thin line of light creeps across the grey carpet.

Three slim, crystalline tendrils wrap around the doorframe.

A small blonde boy slips into the room, blue eyes wide in the darkness. The woman close on his heels, swart hand in his, eases the door shut behind them. She tugs on his arm and trains her Cheshire grin on him. He glares as she whispers something. Rolling her eyes, she flings out her spare hand to slap the nearby light switch. The black pits of the lights in the ceiling blink to fluorescent life, and you remain persistently asleep.

The boy growls under his breath. "If you intend to act like a _child-"_

"Excuse me, who's the kid here? Not me, brat!" retorts the woman at a volume closer to a yell than any excuse for an inside voice. She drags him over to the couch despite his protests, where she bends to poke you in what she probably thinks is your side. A curtain of dark hair drapes itself around her face. "Oi, get your sleepy arse out of bed! Or couch, I guess. We have work to do, you know!"

You become even more persistently asleep. Your current levels of persistently asleep are simply through the roof.

The boy sighs, picking at the diamonds in his ears with a free hand. "And you simply _had _to put these in, I assume. Look," he adds to you, "however attractive sleep may currently appear, time truly is of the essence. We need to get started." He stands about as far from the woman as possible.

Your levels of not caring make yet another circuit and fall once more into the zone of giving no shits. Or they would, if you were not currently asleep. _So_ asleep. The levels of asleep here are practically astonishing. They would win _awards._

"You're so useless." The woman pouts. You do not know this because you are asleep. Seemingly making a decision, she turns around and-

Sits on you.

The boy yelps as he's hoisted onto her lap. Your eyes fly open and a noise somewhere between a squeak and a yell escapes your mouth. "What the fuck, get _off,"_ you wheeze. You flail under duvets that seem to be strangling you.

"I thought you were asleep!" She cackles, wriggling to drive you further into the couch. "_So_ asleep, right?"

"No, fuck, I'm awake, get _off!"_ You squirm. She's laughing so hard she starts sliding off you. The boy squawks and smacks into the coffee table as she collapses onto the floor, howling with laughter. Groggily, you finally fight off your blankets and manage to sit up. You watch with a mixture of disgust and amusement the boy crawls out from underneath her and yanks her to her feet. The look of anguish on his face is pretty hilarious. While the woman attempts to stop hooting and make at least vaguely intelligible noises again, you rub your eyes. Everything is blurry and bright and loud and ugh. You would have preferred _anyone_ but these two this time around. The woman hasn't stuffed things up for you as horribly as the boy has yet, but she's still as obnoxious as a repetitive high-pitched whine. And about as loud as one, for that matter.

"Okay, okay, I'm done," gasps the woman, flailing with her free hand as she gets up properly. "Your reactions are the best." She grins at you, oblivious to the rude hand gesture the boy is making behind her.

"I try," you mutter. Thinking is hard and you don't want to do anything of the sort right now. You wish you could go back to sleep. "How are we for time?" you ask the boy, grudgingly.

"All goods, we're ahead," he says, and then smacks his forehead with a beringed hand. Diamonds again. "Ugh. I've been studying the new ones, you see. Their slang is catching, rather like a fungal growth." He fiddles with the buttons of his light blue dress shirt.

"The new ones? Shit, you're not making me deal with _them_ again, are you?" Were you less tired you'd work up a right beating for this one, but as it is you have to settle for a glower. You're good at those, fortunately.

"Well," he begins a little sheepishly, but the woman butts in with a swish of her pleated skirt. The fluorescent lights make its black-to-white gradient look slightly yellow.

"You bet!" she chirps, making double pistols. Gods is she irritating. "Two more to go, you know! Can't stop now. He understands this sort of thing." She jerks a thumb at the boy. "Anyway, we'd better get started!"

The boy looks up from dusting off his navy blue trousers. "Actually-" He yelps again as she vaults the coffee table and practically flings him at the TV cabinet. Swearing under his breath, he kneels in front of the mahogany and rummages in a pocket. You take the opportunity to rearrange your blankets until you become a burrito. You are _one _with the South American wrapped delicacy. The temperature in this room is dreadful.

The key ring the boy withdraws is bizarre, hung with five of the things made from every material other than brass. One is blueish and multifaceted, another dull orange that flashes green when it catches the light, a third deep brown with a crimson band through it. He flicks through them until one that looks speckled with murky verdigris is between his finger and thumb. He holds it up to the light, though it just seems to get darker, before grabbing a large compartment's padlock and sticking the key inside.

_Click._

The woman clamps her mouth shut as he unhooks the padlock. You can't for the life of you remember why. She's probably just being stupid again.

He opens it and-

oh _dear_-

it doesn't _end_-

Then he – _click_ – is turning the key in the lock and sitting back on the heels of his dress shoes. You and the woman let out heavy breaths. She's hugging a black box to her grey long-sleeved shirt with her free hand now; the pair get to their feet, the woman's oversized hiking boots making even deeper impressions in the carpet. As the boy shoves his keys back in his pocket she dumps the box on the coffee table. While the boy starts plugging varicoloured cables into it and the television, you recognise it as a horribly familiar video game console. Somewhere under the fog of weariness in your mind, your suspicion is lost and crying for its mother. It is far too early for this. Finally the woman chucks a controller at you and, another in her hand, flops onto the couch. The boy is dragged with her and perches awkwardly on the edge of the cushions.

"Are you ready?" asks the woman in a deep voice, as though this is an incredibly grave manner.

Unfortunately, it is.

"No," you mutter as the television blinks to a slightly lighter shade of black.

"That's the spirit!" the woman chirps, then cackles as though that's in any way funny. The boy sits a third controller in his lap and reaches over to press a power button on the front of the console. Green lights limn the circle, dancing along the box's edges as it begins to whirr. You vaguely notice the pair are no longer holding hands, but their knees are still touching. The television flickers again. Abruptly lines of code in murky green and sky blue rush across it, running tracks of light down your face.

"Gods, this is _still_ a piece of shit. Didn't Jas find some time to fix it up a little?" complains the woman. "I mean, pretty much everything it makes is shit, but it could've at least, like, sprinkled glitter on this one or something."

"I think it did," says the boy gloomily. The woman snorts. Oh, right, Jas. Yet another one you hate. The panicked code halts in its tracks and begins to erase itself before it's shunted out of the way by an eye-bleeding menu screen. Computer geeks of the eighties would be awed. The text in its hideous indigo boxes is white.

**BLAIZERT FEMERAT**

BLAIZUTZA GA

Yeah, there's only one option. Of fucking _course_ there's only one option. Why did you expect anything more? Once you press a button you vaguely remember as an affirmative, a grid flashes onto the screen. It overlays what might be considered a world map by some stretch of the imagination, both horribly familiar and completely alien. A compass of surprising quality lurks in the lower left corner, pretending it has no association whatsoever with the rest of the shitty screen. Somewhere on the far northeast of one of the biggest landmasses is a grey splodge. There's another, smaller one on the continent-or-something's western point.

"Ooh, decisions, decisions!" the woman crows.

Before you can touch the controller she's picked some tiny place in the far south.

"It's my right to choose, you useless thing!" you snarl, and she just laughs. The screen has a minor heart attack from attempting to zoom in, but manages to show two navy 'islands' much bigger against a darker sea.

"No, we're going back, fuck the both of you." You seize your controller and stare at it blankly, trying to work out where amongst the scatter of buttons 'back' is. The boy seizes his opportunity.

"Too late, it already happened," he says with far too much smugness. You realise he's already selected one of the black dots sprinkled across the landmasses.

"Oh my fucking gods!" you yell as they bicker over dot after dot, the screen spasming with the effort of keeping up. "You're doing this _again?"_

"Oh, you bet," snickers the woman as everything rushes in yet again. "It's all planned out, see."

"To some extent," mutters the boy. What the view is currently doing could conceivably be considered panning. The pixelated outline of some kind of structure, shot through with maroon, looms against a black background. A hideous text box appears on the screen.

GEMER KAYBWD?

"Ready to play again, Pendy?" The woman beams her shiteating grin at you. You don't take your eyes off the screen.

"No."

[YAI, KAYBWD]

* * *

**A/N: Greetings, Internet! Mellifluousness here, having returned from four months' trek through the fabled Lands of Planning to bring you the rewritten ****_Ears to Hear Us! _****Yes, there will be language, and in fact multiple languages. **

**Ah, second person! While it's not entirely within the site rules, I'm going to make the excuse that it is purely a stylistic choice and this story is ****_not _****interactive in ****_any _****way. Which means ****_no_**** OCs, ****_no_**** dumb character questions, no reader-submitted commands or whatever. ****_This story is not interactive. _**

**Chapter lengths should average four thousand words and I hopeto update every week at around this time. We'll see how long that lasts. **

**Confusion is understandable for this chapter because you're not meant to have any idea who these people are or what's going on. Speculate, I dare you. :D**

**If you feel like reviewing, I'd love it if you could be comprehensive! I'm much more interested as to what you thought about specific parts of the chapter rather than the chapter as a whole, and I do not care at all about what you think about the author's note. I'll reply to you in PM if you have any questions, unless you're on anon in which case I'll yell at you in an A/N. I'll probably reply to you in PM anyway because I like replying to reviews. **

**And that's about it! See you next Saturday, my loverlies. :D**


	2. Ready Player Three

**A/N: Quick glossary of some Kiwi stuff in here for foreigners:**

**Vivid - permanent marker (I didn't even know people didn't call them vivids)**

**Eh/ay - I've spelt it 'ay' here so you don't think of the Canadian 'eh'; it blends into the rest of the sentence and doesn't rise like it's a question, even though it is one**

**Oi - used both as a term of address and a way to get someone's attention**

**New Zealand November is summer because hemispheres.**

**By the way, pronunciation: Sima Mauheni is _SEE-ma MOH-heh-nee.__  
_**

**Aaaand I think that's about it for this chapter. Just tell me if you need anything clarified.**

CONTROLLER DETECTED IN SLOT C.

PLEASE INSERT MEMORY CARD.

READING MEMORY CARD…

DATA ALREADY EXISTS ON CARD.

OvË́͊̄͋r̢̋̏ͯŗͩ͑̂̚RR̊͌͞wRWrITͭ͐͂̊̄t̸͋eͯͬE͋ͤ͒͗͑‽?¿?̨͑͒

[nonononono N N NNNN]

FAILED TO OVERWRITE.

ENTER SIDE.

[C]

LOCATING SIDE C…

JOINING SIDE C…

SIDE C JOINED.

READY PLAYER 3.

PRESS START.

[START]

-{}-

A dull roar of chatter fills the classroom. Laminated posters all over the walls reading things like I DON'T GIVE YOU GRADES, YOU EARN THEM and HARD WORK BEATS TALENT WHEN TALENT DOESN'T WORK HARD hardly muffle it. The whiteboard at the front has been cleaned of the Middle Ages for the week, nothing but a _Stasia waz here_ gloating in one corner. Grey chairs have been stacked upon white desks; the teacher sits on her tatty throne and scowls at her laptop. Students in off-white uniform shirts and black trousers lean on the desks, guffawing at each other's bad jokes.

There are plenty of people in this room you could be. Twenty-nine, in fact! Decisions, decisions. How could you ever choose? Perhaps the tall, surly Asian boy with headphones in his ears. Could that be a glint of metal under his jumper's long, black sleeves? He looks interesting. Or, no, the brown-haired girl surrounded by a gang of golden gigglers. She's certainly protagonist material. Or maybe she'd be better off as an antagonist to that quiet boy near the back, who's scribbling on a spare piece of paper. There are far too many stories going on here. How could you pick only _one?_

You are now none of those people. Rather you are a member of a noisy quintet in the middle of the room, being regaled with Lynette Teisina's latest soccer triumphs. You should probably care, but you really, really don't. You hope you are making the appropriate noises and nodding in the right places while you zone out. Were you anyone else, you might object to your physique, or perhaps your past, being examined right now. You might be adamant that you are goddamn _mysterious _and will _remain _that way, so help you. Since you are you, however, you'd actually be pretty okay with that. If we feel like it! Y'know.

Your name is Sima Arataki Mauheni, though you pretend your middle name doesn't exist because it's ridiculously flamboyant and practically impossible to say. Currently, you are deep in an incredibly dramatic daydream about being a sniper. There is pretty much no way you could be that badass, ever, which is why it's a daydream. On your belly in the grass, you raise the scope of your rifle to your eye and pick your target: the enemy general, a moustachioed man in blue. Your finger tenses on the trigger, following him as he-

"Sima?"

-darts back and forth, yelling orders at his troops. If he'd just stop for a moment-

"Oi, Sima."

-you could get a clear shot. You-

"She's totally zoned out, oh my god. Do you think we could draw a moustache on her?"

-aim again and- wait.

"Fuck yes, I have a vivid, hold on-"

"Guys!" you exclaim, jolting out of your stupor to see a put-out Almira Bishara with a half-open pencil case in her hand. The others burst out laughing at her expression.

"Aw, we were going to give you the greatest moustache, Sima!" your best friend Katie Partridge informs you, grinning past her too-long brown fringe. "It was gonna be amazing!"

"We had plans, Sima," says Sienna Falaniko in her usual quiet voice, doe-eyes doleful.

"And you ruined them!" Lynette shakes a dramatic walnut finger of accusation at you. "How could you do this to us?"

"I dunno, I g-g-guess I'm just that awesome," you retort, grimacing as you get caught on the G. "Wait, what's the time?"

"Two minutes and twenty-seven seconds to the bell. No, wait, twenty-six. Twenty-five. Twenty-four." Sienna stares intently at her watch, ignoring strands of brown hair sneaking loose from her ponytail. "It keeps changing, why is it- oh right, because it's… oh…"

"Nice, Sienna, quick on the uptake," says Katie, crossing one trouser'd leg over the other where she leans against a desk. She's the only one of you who still refuses to wear a skirt.

"Be nice to Sienna," Almira reprimands her jokingly. Lynette just huffs and folds her arms, fixing her scowl on the back of Almira's hijab. She's probably annoyed that she got interrupted. Oops. Now you feel guilty.

"Uh, you can keep going if you want, Lynnie," you tell her. You tug on one of the black bangs you keep out of your ponytail either side of your head as she brightens up.

"Oh, right, so as I was saying," she continues, and is immediately interrupted by the harsh peal of the bell. In almost perfect chorus the class cheers. Ignoring the teacher's half-hearted farewell, they flood towards the door, Katie singing about how their mental synchronisation can have only one explanation. Lynette's glaring at nothing in particular again, so you put Sienna between yourself and her. After the usual squeeze to get into the off-white river of a corridor everyone except Sienna gets lost in the rush. She towers above most of the crowd, making a convenient wake for you to follow as she shoves blithely through it.

"Did you live, Sima?" she asks as you and around fifteen other students spill onto the path. Mount Roskill Grammar School's white-walled buildings and blue roofs surround you, the concrete paths and stretches of grass between them flooded with students.

"Yep, r-r-r-r…" You try again. "Pretty sure, y-y-yeah."

She gives one of her huge smiles. "Kinda thought you'd get crushed. 'Cause you're short. Heh."

"Well, I survived, like, eleven months of this, so I th-th-th-th…" Okay, different word, your tongue is not agreeing with you today. "Yeah." Good enough.

"You could write a book, you're so good with words." Her smile is steadily growing. You laugh and start heading for the front of the school; she keeps a little ahead of you with long, elegant strides. God, she makes you feel so awkward. "Lynnie gets really boring when she keeps talking about sports, ay," she asks as you round the corner past the science block and the car park comes into view.

You give a little laugh. "Yeah, I-I-I'd much rather t-talk about, like, video games or something." You shrug your bag higher onto your shoulders.

"You mean history, or One Direction?" Now _that_ is a shiteating grin. When she does this to other people it's hilarious to watch them bluster about it. Not so much when it's turned on you. "Or, like, chess?"

"No, I m-m-m-m-mean," you say frantically, but Katie takes this moment to swoop in and match you for stride.

"'Sup," she says.

"Thanks for the rrrrescue," you whisper to her. The R decides it would like a little longer in the spotlight.

"I did it… because I'm _Batman_," she replies, somehow managing to mimic Batman's voice under her breath. You're pretty sure her vocabulary is almost entirely comprised of pop culture references.

"Oh, hi, Katie." Sienna's smile returns to a tolerable breadth. "I was just talking to Sima about-"

"Almira!" Hell yes, two saves in a row. You have never been so happy to see this girl. She and Lynette have materialised out of the crowd, joining your little gang with greetings of their own. Streams of students part around the purring buses and a few drowning cars as you make your way past the car park. Out the school gate and around the corner, past the big miro tree you head. The green fence and the strip of grass behind it to your left, the churning road to your right, you are swept along in yet another human river. Lynette manages to pick up her soccer story again. You have to admit, it's actually pretty funny.

Frost Road is always chaotic once school ends, parents attempting to manoeuvre into spaces that wouldn't fit a bike, let alone a car. The traffic is hardly helped by students darting across the road to the dairy opposite. Almost all consider "look both ways" a joke. Crowds dwindle across crossings manned by primary school students in eye-melting jackets, who treat the job as though they will never again have such responsibility in their lives. ("Please wait! Check!" "Clear!" "Cross now!") It's a long walk past Mount Roskill Grammar's endless campus and rows of towering trees. Conversation bounces back and forth between the five of you without regard for logic as you pass the veggie shop across the road; to its side are those two huge, dodgy warehouse buildings and their signs brightly declaring 'For Lease!' that never seem to go away. Then you're finally trudging past the first house's low stone wall and regal elm, the driveway Sienna has informed you in hushed tones leads to Narnia, the brick house's hedge and weird red bush. You are counting down by now. And there's the corner!

Britton Avenue rolls out before you. On this side of the road is the house with the creeper-hung fence and palm trees, its base lined with flax bushes. The avenue is on a slope, the driveways of the houses on the left rising in hills and those on the right dipping slightly. Verdant gardens take deep breaths of mid New Zealand November's rising heat. Peppering the paths between the stretching trees and weatherboard houses are gaggles of students, yours just one of many. Your first year of high school is close to finishing, and it's sure been interesting. Not the work, you're not _that _nerdy, but the fact that you've met the four closest friends you've ever had, and the only ones who've shared your love for gaming. You've spent days sneaking around Almira's mansion or sitting stiffly in Sienna's spotless lounge. You've explored the bush near Lynette's rural residence, huddled in Katie's tiny room and found yours packed with these four. So many game marathons and late night sleepovers. You're pretty sure this year alone makes up for all the shittiness of Primary and Intermediate. And it's not even over yet! You are so looking forwards to spending the summer holidays with Almira, Lynette, Katie and Sienna.

You surface from your silent soliloquy to Almira talking about something other than her latest Trash to Fashion design for once. This is enough of a miracle to catch your attention.

"So I grabbed a sword and some torches and went down into this cave, right. It was huge, there was all this goddamn coal everywhere and it's like, fuck coal, I have _so _much coal, why did you give me _more_ coal?"

"That's what always happens," says Katie. "Whenever you want anything that isn't coal, you get coal. It's just how it works."

"Are you g-g-g-g-g…" Your face contorts. Goddamnit. "Talking about Terraria?" you finish with an effort.

"_No,"_ gasps Katie as though you've just committed the most heinous of crimes. "Why would you _say _such a thing?"

"Sssseems like the kind of dumb thing you'd play," you retort.

"Oi, it's Minecraft," Almira corrects you with a grin. "Haven't you heard of it?"

"Oh, _that_." You roll your eyes. "Doesn't it suck?"

Katie leaps away from you and onto the road. "I disown you! You are no longer my son!" she proclaims, thrusting out a dramatic hand of refusal. It seems you truly _have_ committed the most heinous of crimes.

"F-f-f-f-f – ugh – could you ever ffforgive me?" you cry.

"No! Never!"

"Katie, you're dumb!" Lynette calls after her. "Anyway." She turns to you. "They're kind of obsessed with it. You're right, though, it does look pretty bad."

"Kinda l-l-l-like 3D Terraria," you agree. Katie comes jogging back, unable to stay out of the spotlight for long.

"You're dead to me," she informs you with a glare. "It's not 3D Terraria, it's, like…" She flails for a moment and looks to Almira for help.

"It's pretty much amazing," says Almira, nodding as though she did _not_ fail to peak your interest in any way whatsoever. Your face probably reveals something of that because she resigns, "Okay, look, how about we just show her, Katie?"

"Oh yeah!" Katie brightens. "You can come to my house, Sima, and we'll set up a server and Sienna and Almira can join!"

"Wait, you're in on this too?" Lynette looks at Sienna incredulously. She shrugs.

"Sometimes it's kinda fun. I like getting heaps of dogs."

"Then it's settled!" proclaims Almira, flinging her arms wide in triumph. "You'll just have to miss out, Lynnie."

"Like hell! I'm coming to your house and you're showing me this shit." Almira and Katie share a victorious grin. You have a feeling you and Lynnie have been singled out as prey.

"So we'll just go home and g-g-g-g-get changed?" The scraggly shrub outside your house is approaching. You're pretty sure you can see your mum's jeep parked in the driveway. "I really don't want to st-st-st-st-" okay, new word, what's a better word, "keep wearing uniform."

"'Kay, I'll see you in like, ten minutes?" Katie asks. You affirm this and look both ways before crossing the road. Road safety is a serious matter. Sparing a glance at the junk mail stuffed in your pink mailbox, you decide it's probably not worth it and instead march up the driveway.

It is indeed your mother's filthy jeep in front of the two garage doors. Like almost every other garage in Auckland, there is so much crap stuffed into it that there isn't any room for cars. You round the white concrete wall to the side of the house, up the stairs to the front door. Why not have the front door at the side of the house. It makes perfect sense. You kick your schoolshoes into the pile of mismatched footwear on the doormat and open the screen door.

"Mum, I'm home!" A short hallway leads into the lounge, which is crammed with mismatched armchairs and couches. Your parents bought them secondhand after they realised how expensive the house actually was. DVDs and weird knick-knacks form small mountains on shelves, the red face of some hollering cooking show host filling the ancient TV's screen. Your mother's low chuckle follows from where she's oozing on the couch facing it. She is the kind of woman who, by the very generous, would be called 'plus-size'.

"How was school?" she asks with her creepy ability to know when you've entered the lounge. It's either eyes in the back of her greasy black curls or your reflection in the TV screen. You can never tell which. As usual, the question is in a tone that makes it clear that an answer isn't expected.

"G-g-good," you reply, more because it's the ritual response than an honest opinion. Dumping your bag onto the nearest chair, you dart into the hall. From his bombsite of a bedroom your little brother screeches what certain species of wasp might consider a greeting. Unfortunately he's right across the hall from your room, so you have to risk looking in on him to be granted safe passage. Cautiously you poke your head around the door to see his small, brown form buried under a pile of Lego.

"Hi, Sima!" he screams. You wince.

"Hi, Rangi."

"Get your dumb face out of my room!"

You duck the plastic barrage that follows and dart into your bedroom, slamming the door behind you. You'd hoped he would grow out of this by the age of seven, but it seems to have stuck with him a further two years. Maybe by ten he'll be tolerable. You can dream, right?

Your bedroom is one of the neatest in the house save for that of your clean-freak sister. You're pretty sure she either irons her sheets daily or just sleeps on top of them without moving, though, so she doesn't count. This morning you forgot to make your bed so it resembles a nest, the shelf beside it full of books you can't be bothered to organise. The blue dresser under the window contains all your clothes, seeing as the cupboard opposite is crammed with junk. Today a hula hoop, a bouncy ball and a blanket covered in smiling bees have surfaced from the primordial stew within. The ways of the cupboard are mysterious and eldritch. They are not for mere mortals to wot of.

Most wall space is covered with video game posters and pictures of various fearsome arthropods. Spiders, wasps, beetles, the works. Bugs are _so_ cool. Unfortunately you seem unable to find anyone who doesn't think your awesome pictures are creepy as hell. You just try to keep people out of your room. You've hidden Justin Bieber's fabulous haircut and dramatic stare, the last relic of an obsessive age, in a corner beneath most of a Battlefield 3 poster. That age is not quite over yet. You hold tightly to your love of terrible boy bands, and you Do Not Let The Haters Bring You Down. Even if most of said bands are douches. You just so _happen_ to like pop.

In case the dozens of history books on your shelves weren't enough sign, you find history the greatest thing in the world. From its bloody battles to its even bloodier battles to its tyrannical rulers and mighty empires, history is just so great. Through your books it's like you can traverse time itself, looking back on the mistakes of the past and ahead to the future's mysteries. And in the process, you learn about the awesome people who made it all happen! Sometimes you wish you could talk to the heroes and villains of history, and then you realise most of them probably suck.

You throw your uniform at the bed and rummage through the dresser in search of something appropriate for the Partridge house. Katie wears a bright orange hoodie year round in a city where six degrees Celsius is the deepest pit of winter, so you don't have to look hard. A maroon shirt with white cuffs and a pair of light blue jean-short-things seem suitable, you decide. On a whim you take out your ponytail too and attack your waist-length black curls with the nearest hairbrush. It's a losing battle, though, and you have to give up eventually. You always tie it up with a strand of hair loose to either side of your face, which go down to around your armpits. It makes your bulbous nose look slightly less horrible.

God, you're so much more comfortable in your own clothes. Now to deal with Katie's weird obsession. Despite her protests, you're sure that it's going to be 3D Terraria minus everything that makes Terraria cool. You couldn't do without things like the Eater of Worlds and all the awesome weapons. What does Minecraft have, green penis monsters? _So dumb._

You jump as the metronome on the shelf decides that now would be a good time to start ticking. _Tick, tick, tick, tack, look at me I'm creepy as hell. _God, you hate that thing. It's a light wooden one, so battered and ancient it tends to adjust itself and start ticking at random times. Especially in the middle of the night when you've just woken from a nightmare. You march over to it and pinch the ticky bit, whatever that's called, to shut it up. You were sure you put this in the box of stuff to throw out when you moved here, but it rose from the dead and appeared in your room nonetheless. It's a piece of shit. A creepy piece of shit, for that matter.

You open the door a crack to check that it's safe to exit. Rangi seems to have vanished into the depths of his room, so you dart into the hall and catch yourself on the lounge doorframe. Your dad, who is made mostly of limbs, has sprawled out the twiggy frame you inherited from him over one armchair. Your big brother, Mac, lounges with just the right amount of class in another. You narrow your eyes at him and the gold badge that glints on his uniform shirt. He doesn't go to Mount Roskill, but he's a prefect in his weird prissy school and apparently perfect. Perfect prefect. You and your sister share a healthy suspicion of him, which is also the only thing you sister shares with you ever.

Your father's head emerges from his shirt's brown collar in much the way a turtle's would emerge from its shell. "Hi, Sima! How are y-y-y-you?" Yeah, the build of a stick insect isn't the only thing his genes so graciously passed on to you.

"Pretty good," you say with a smile, because he's the cool parent. "I'm g-g-going to Katie's."

"Have fun." Mac gives a smile of his own. It looks like he's practiced it in the mirror. God your family is so weird.

"Don't stay out too late," your mother adds, probably because that's the kind of thing you say when your kid goes to a friend's house. You make a noncommittal noise and duck into the front hall, grabbing the nearest pair of shoes that are probably yours. After hopping on one leg to pull them on you're finally out the door, rounding the house and setting off down the street.

The trip is uneventful. Katie's house isn't far. In five minutes or so you're rapping on her oaken front door under the wreath they've forgotten to take down for three years. Katie opens it almost immediately, resembling as usual a traffic cone in her orange hoodie. She makes half an attempt to blow her thick, curly fringe out of her face. "Hey!"

"Hi," you reply with a grin. "You know your jjjjumper is really stupid."

"Like your face!" She turns on a bare heel and marches into the cramped hall. You kick off your shoes and follow her; the Partridge house is far smaller than yours, but her mother regularly savages any mess that dares to accumulate. The glass-fronted cabinet across the room from the leather lounge could blind someone.

Katie leads you around a bend in the hall, excessive amounts of pasty leg showing past shorts so short they almost occupy negative space. Generic landscape paintings cover the walls. Her room is at the end of the corridor, where the smell of must is at its strongest. A sign declaring WARNING, CONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS hangs over the doorknob and doodles of gun-toting stickmen swarm the once-white surface.

"Isn't this place a r-r-r-rental?" you ask.

"Yep." Grinning, she kicks the door open and you enter her den. Something profane is blaring from the speakers of the laptop on her desk. Her bed has pillows on both ends and a depression in the middle of it, as though she curls up on it rather than sleeping like a normal person. You have a feeling that's actually what she does.

The curtains are drawn, leaving the rest of the room dark as well as cramped. Flopping into her wheel-less desk chair, Katie points out a beanbag you can drag over and proceeds to click at things rapidly. Her mouse has red stripes on it. Everything she does is _sooo cooool._

There's a stain on the fabric that smells faintly of cheese, but you sink into it anyway. As you watch, Katie flicks between a chat program and something brown. "You gonna call them already?" you ask.

"Oh, right, that's probably a good idea." Without bothering to warn the others she switches off her music and clicks a button to start up a cheesy dial tone.

"Can't you at least warn us when you do that?" complains Sienna, voice crackly through her microphone.

"'Course not, she's Katie," says Lynette.

"Server's up!" Rapid clicking sounds from Almira's end. "Lynette, move over, you're too fat to see through."

"_You're_ supposed to be showing _me_, Al. _God."_

"Yeah, well… still!"

Katie types something into the brown window and the text on it is replaced with a loading bar. "Prepare to be amazed, Sima," she says in a deep voice, as though this is an incredibly grave manner. "Are you ready?"

"Rrrrrrr- sure." You have low expectations. Katie's game recommendations tend to be kind of terrible. With a _crunch-crunch_ the loading screen is replaced with what you can only guess to be a blocky forest in hideous colours, a white rectangle sticking up from one corner.

"Wow, it really is 3D Terraria," you comment. "Only with shittier g-g-g-g-graphics."

Katie gives you a glare that could corrode metal. "Give it a chance. If you got hung up on graphics you'd never play anything good." You decide it's best not to argue.

Sienna and the Lynnie-Almira team join the server, skittering on their avatars' blocky legs. Without further ado or apparent reason a hook sinks into the back of your brain, tendrils of headache coursing to the front of your skull. Ow. What could have caused _that?_

"We should build a house, it'll be cool," says Sienna. This is met with agreement from the other two obsessors. Throughout the next ten minutes you and Lynnie are lectured on how right click is place, left click is break, this is how you use the inventory, wait get in the chair so I can show you, this is jump, that's run, it's not that bad so stop making weird squinty faces.

"I've got a headache," you groan, because it jolts with the screen whenever your character jumps. A mansion is taking shape in the clearing your three avatars made, currently resembling a wooden box. You'd probably be enjoying this more if the hook in your head wasn't so sharp.

"That sucks, Sima," says Almira. "Maybe you should ask Katie's mum for headache pills?"

"We don't keep drugs in this house," Katie informs you. "You'll just have to suck it up." You groan again, kneading your forehead.

"How about we show them mining?" Sienna suggests. By now you really don't care what you do so long as this headache clears up.

"'Kay, you can sit on the beanbag, Sima." Katie heaves herself out of it. "Try not to let your head explode."

"Yeah." You are ascending into all new levels of articulacy. Once you sink into the lumpy fabric Katie is back in her chair, arming herself with a stone pickaxe and sword from the chest in the house. Almira and Lynette are grabbing the controls off each other so often that you have no idea who's moving their avatar. You watch through a squint as they, Sienna and Katie regroup outside the mansion and set off. For a minute or two they dart between the trees and hit at blocks without any apparent purpose until Lynnie spots a hole in the blocky ground.

Their chatter is prodding at the raw bits of your skull now. The blue light of Katie's laptop screen against the musty dark of her room claws at your eyes. God you hate headaches. You blink hard a few times and it does absolutely nothing to help. Katie's voice breaks through the haze, something about how you should play, and you agree because it's easier than arguing. Standing up sends hooks into the back corners of your skull. Sitting down again is easier. You fumble for the mouse and WASD keys, swinging your crosshair around while you try to figure out where everyone is. It's all grey and everything looks the same. Ugh.

"Go left, Sima, there's coal."

"R-" you choke on the I and give up. Which way's left again? Oh, there. You hit at the thingy and get a thing. It's black. Coal, right, because coal is black. You could get into Harvard or something with this level of thinking. Katie steers you in the direction of the others, who are jabbering about iron, and you trail after them down another passage. Sienna is slapping ugly torches on the walls.

_Fire _laces along your neurons at a gurgling growl from the speakers. Lynette jumps with a cry of "Holy _shit!_ What the hell was that?"

"Calm down, Lynnie, it's just a zombie," says Almira. You think of _Left 4 Dead _and hope they're not that bad. After a moment you remember how to take out your sword and follow her and Sienna around the corner to see-

ow _shit_-

You recoil from the screen and almost topple the chair as the hooks in your head wrench you in every direction. That's enough, you're done, you're getting out of here, your head hurts too much. Without bothering to explain you shove the chair out of your way and scramble out the half-open door. Raking your face, you stagger down the hall and into the lounge, where Katie's mum looks up from her book in surprise.

"Oh, hello, Sima. I thought you were here. Do you need anything?"

"Sssssorry, my h-h-h-h-" Fuck. "Headache, can you take me home please." It's not really a question. Katie darts up the hall after you, blue eyes wide beneath her fringe.

"Oi, you okay? What happened?"

"Head hurts t-t-t-too much, sorry," you mumble, burying your forehead in one hand. She deflates a little.

"Oh. Okay. You gonna take her home, Mum?"

"Yeah, sure, I'll give you a lift." Ms Partridge grabs a bookmark to mark her place and lays her book on the coffee table. "Go get your shoes, Sima, I'll start the car. You're alright on your own for a couple of minutes, Katie?"

"Yeah." The corner of the girl's mouth tweaks downwards as she looks at you. "See you, like, tomorrow, then?"

You make a noise. It's certainly not English and doesn't do a good job of expressing anything. It's pretty pathetic, actually. You stumble into the front hall, grab your shoes and stagger towards the garage, waving to Katie as she returns to her room.

"See ya, Sima."

"Mnf." Wow. Getting into pure poetry now. You fumble with the doorknob for a moment while your brain attempts to split your skull from inside. The car is about a kilometre away, and the rising of the roller door pummels your brain with hammers. Opening the car door takes a couple of tries. As you collapse into the seat and flap a hand at the seatbelt Ms Partridge revs the engine. The sound claws straight into your brain without stopping at your ears. Everything is horrible. Everything.

The trip is long enough that you can stew in your misery for a little while, but then you're pulling into the driveway. "Here we are," says Ms Partridge cheerfully. "You can get in okay, right?"

"Mnf." You're on a roll. The idle engine rakes your eardrums. You throw your feeble weight at the door in an attempt to get it open before swinging your legs onto the concrete. Ms Partridge makes sure you're up the stairs before driving off again; you realise you didn't put your shoes on, so you just chuck them back into the pile. Moving sends pain lacing through your head. You stagger inside, much to the surprise of your dad, who is heading for the lounge.

"Wasn't expecting you back so soon!" He peers at you for a moment. "Are you alright?"

"Nng." Words are hard. "Headache," you manage to mumble. "Going b-b-b-b- sleep."

"C'mere." He wraps one long, dark arm around your shoulders and walks you to your room. "Must be a pretty bad headache." His ponderous speech is soothing for once rather than annoying. He always speaks slowly to keep from stuttering, which is a strategy you completely ignore. You screw your eyes shut and lean into him so that he's practically carrying you. He doesn't say anything, just helping you sit on your bed and laying you down gently. This is why he's the cool parent. "You go to sleep. I'll come wake you later, 'k-k-k-k-k… alright?"

"Mn." Dimly, you hear him pad out of the room and ease the door shut behind him.

The metronome on the shelf starts up.

_Tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack._

A strange smell drifts into the air around you. It's a little musty. A bit like chlorine.

_Tick… tack._

It also kind of smells like nothing.

_Tick… tack._

There's a roaring in your ears.

_Tick… tack._

Then you don't hear anything at all.

_Tick._

**A/N: Well this can't mean anything important.**

**MEET THE PROTAGONIST, EVERYBODY. She actually has some backstory this time around, as well as a proper personality. And also is Maori. Not sure if nerdy Maori exist since I've never actually been friends with one, but Sima is one anyway because reasons. Also because I have never been friends with a Maori lots of this stuff is based on tweaked stereotypes with my imagination and the urge to make them an incredibly weird family to fill in the blanks. Hopefully I haven't botched them completely. Fun trivia for you if you couldn't find out from the names: Lynette is Tongan and Sienna is Cook Islander. **

**That's about all I have to say other than it feels very strange to be almost finished chapter seven and only publishing chapter two. It's also a good thing, though, because I can't seem to keep properly up with the chapter-a-week thing. Next time around I'm going to go for a ten-chapter buffer, I think. I promise I get better with this writing style as I go. Choppy sentences are my worst enemies._  
_**

**I'm sorry for this A/N I feel insensitive but I don't mean to be :c**


	3. Speaking in Tongues

**A/N: 'Bush' is Kiwi-ese for 'forest' or 'woods'. Namely temperate forest because that's what we have here.**

**There's another language featured in this chapter! Considering that it doesn't exist, have some pronunciation guidelines: Is represent an ****_ee _****sound, As an ****_ah _****sound, Us an ****_oo _****sound. ****_Er _****is always stressed, if that's not present ****_ee _****is always stressed, if ****_that's _****not present ****_oo _****is always stressed, and if none of those are present it's the first syllable of the word. If there are two of any of those the first one is stressed. That should be all you need to know.**

**Enter players 3a and 3b. :D**

It takes some time to realise that you are not asleep.

You are also not breathing.

Shit.

You open your eyes. Then you close them again. There's not much difference save for the vague knowledge that your eyelids are probably touching. Thing is, you can't actually feel it, so it's not terribly helpful.

Shit.

Okay, time to figure out what just happened. You went to Katie's house. You played that game. You got a headache. And then…

You fell asleep? Yeah. Your dad helped you into bed. He's so great. That means you're in bed. Maybe you slept for the entire afternoon and it's night now. That's plausible. Your room doesn't get this dark normally, but hey, just because you can't feel your bed underneath you doesn't mean you're not in it! If you roll over and squint at where the curtains probably are, your eyes will adjust in a few minutes and you'll be able to make out shapes. Yep. This is a perfectly reasonable conclusion and you are definitely not panicking.

Are your eyes even open?

Shitshitshitshitshit

Not panicking. Panicking is what you are _not _doing. You are removing yourself from the situation like the sniper in the grass. What the situation actually _is _means nothing; you just do what needs doing. Okay, you're a _little_ scared of the dark, but this is worse somehow. It's claustrophobic while thick with infinity. Like the blackness is bigger than your room could ever be. You can't feel anything, not the bed that has to be beneath you, not the fists you swear you're clenching, not your eyes opening and closing and opening and closing and shit. It's not cold. It's not warm. It's not anything.

Nothing but that smell, chlorine and must and nothing at all. Sharp on the nostrils without reaching them.

And, on the edge of hearing, the _whissssspering_. The susurrus of scales, or feathers, or something, or _nothing_, against oblivion.

Yeah. Oblivion. Nihility.

Void.

Shit.

There's a sensation of movement. A tingling dances up your arms, the painful sort like they've fallen asleep and you made the mistake of putting weight on them. You think you may be upright now? It's hard to tell. You notice suddenly that your headache's gone.

Then something speaks-

hurts-

don't want to hear-

stop-

hurts-

can't breathe-

STOP-

It stops.

-{}-

It takes some time to realise that you are not asleep.

You are also breathing.

The grass beneath you is damp and tickles your face. You're lying prone on squishy ground with your legs and arms all over the place; it takes a moment to locate them all. Yeah, any sort of elegant landing was too much to expect. The _skreep-skreep_ of crickets and a few unfamiliar insect calls bring a gentle chill to prickle at your skin. The moistness of the soil is seeping into your clothes. Ew. Time to sit up. Calling your arms to attention, you get them under you, roll over and-

Wow.

Okay, _wow_.

The grass _towers_, stretching maybe a metre into the air above you. Its blades are broad and oddly curly, but that's not the impressive thing. That would be the sky.

You are definitely not in a city. You can't be anywhere _near_ a city, because the sky here is velvet not only studded with diamonds but dusted with galaxies. The constellations have congregated in a single patch of sky and filled nothingness with the neurons of a universe. You stare.

Where _are_ you?

You fling yourself into a sitting position. Okay, you still can't see anything because it's dark and the grass is everywhere. Getting to your feet, you look around. Hills with long manes roll to the horizon in every direction, dotted with shrubs and pocked with the blank eyes of caves.

The landscape is formed of irregular cuboids of dirt.

What the fuck.

Trying to wrap your head around the utter weirdness of cuboid terrain, you head over to the nearest rise and kick at the… blocks. Most of them are around a metre tall, except where they aren't. You crouch to get a closer look and realise mud cakes your hair. Ew. Grimacing, you rake your fingers through your long bangs to try getting it out, though it's to no avail. Ewww. Okay, concentrating on weird-as blocks, ignoring your hair. If your suspicions are correct, you should be able to sink your fingers into this one, like _so_. The mud squelches between your fingers. It's disgusting.

You brush it to the sides of the cube and scrape it back into the centre, somehow finding edges where it connects to the blocks beside it. The dirt crumbles beneath your fingers more like polystyrene than hard soil. And yes, after a minute or so, you can wrench a metre cubed of dirt out of the ground and compact it until it's small enough to fit into your hand. And somehow weighs less. That kind of defies the laws of physics, but okay.

Yeah, you just broke a block. In a land of blocks. Fortunately you and the plants are not blocky.

Shit.

You think you're in Minecraft.

You stare at the dirt cube for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out whether there's any other possible explanation. At all. Please let there be another explanation. There _has_ to be another explanation. A dream, maybe? A dream so vivid you can feel and smell and probably taste. You don't really want to test the taste thing. Yeah, this isn't a dream. Your dreams are never this vivid. Are anyone's dreams this vivid? Who knows.

This is impossible and yet on some level it makes sense to you. A weird certainty sits in your gut, gloating. 'Yep, you're in a video game, this comes as a surprise to absolutely no-one.' It's _someone's _certainty, but you don't think you put it there. That thought makes it even creepier. The fact that you can't bring yourself not to trust it isn't reassuring in the slightest.

Okay, so you're in a video game. You don't know how or why or why it even makes _sense_, so finding that out takes priority. Getting out would also be a good thing. Finding shelter too. Zombies that cause splitting headaches would not be pleasant to run into, and if the ground is damp it's probably been raining. Right, that's your plan. Find shelter, find out why you're here, get home. Perfect.

Why are you so accepting of this? You guess it's easier than panicking, but… ugh. Surely _some_ kind of freakout is warranted?

You flail around and make little screaming noises for a couple of minutes. It makes you feel a little better.

Then you remember the zombies and stop. Oh, right, the penis things might also be around. You are _so_ not looking forward to meeting those. Letting your arms fall to your sides, you squint into the chill darkness around you in an attempt to make out any signs of life. Don't the monsters in this game come out at night? You're pretty sure Katie mentioned that. As far as you can see, though, the tar-soaked landscape is still, not even a breeze skipping across it. It's just cold. And dark. Very dark. The kind of dark where you hold your hands up to your face and lose them along the way.

That is not very reassuring.

Suddenly jean-shorts and a maroon shirt don't seem appropriate anymore. Taking your shoes off, for that matter, was an incredibly stupid idea. Dammit, you don't even have _socks_ on. You think back to news reports and how they urged people to stay in one place if they got lost in the bush. Did Katie say anything about NPCs in this game? You can't remember. Even if there _are _people in this game, you have no idea whether any of them live around here, let alone send out search parties. You'd rather not risk your chances of running into a monster by staying here.

You squint into the dark again. There is a lot of it.

Crossing your arms against the chill, you pick a direction and set off.

If this were a movie, you think, that would be a really good point to have a timeskip. Bam, cut to something interesting and cool, like you posing majestically with a sword.

This is not, however, a movie, and you're still walking. Through mud, in bare feet, in the dark, while it's cold. You really wish this was a movie.

You are met with your first obstacle without even moving because there is a muddy ledge in front of you. You have no interest in wearing it while you try to climb it. To most people it would probably be slightly lower than waist height, but on you it's closer to your chest. This is in no way fair. Sure, your avatars could jump metre-high blocks, but-

Actually, you wonder if you could do that somehow. If the entire terrain is made out of cubes, why shouldn't game mechanics apply to you? You've been sucked into a video game. You might as well test out stuff.

Again with the being accepting of that. Finding out what's going on officially takes first priority.

You spring most of your height into the air and land on your butt on the ridge. Ow. You have a feeling you're going to be doing a lot of that over the next few hours, looking out over the hills.

You do a lot of that for around an hour.

Then you hear voices.

You're in a steep-sided gully about four blocks deep, and where it winds around a corner a few metres away you can hear people talking! You'd consider this a good thing, but whatever language they're speaking, it's not English. It comes in fits and starts and jarring sounds and not enough vowels. It doesn't even sound like Maori, which you can't speak anyway. Something about the voices, too, is creeping you out a little; they grate on your ears. You hop onto the block-high rise against the closer wall of the gully and flatten yourself against it. You're over the mud by now. Time to gauge the situation; it's a miracle you haven't met any monsters or fallen into a pit yet, so you can't keep pushing your luck by wandering around in the dark. Just because you can't speak their language doesn't mean you can't communicate with these people. They'll probably keep you safe until you can find someone who speaks English, too. Doesn't everyone in video games speak English? You're pretty sure that's how it works. There's got to be someone around here who does.

God you're so freaked out right now. Talking to people is scary, especially when they're creepy-sounding people you don't know who speak a freaky language and live in a video game. Wow. You're pretty sure things can't get much weirder than that.

The pros outweigh the cons, though. You just need to work up the courage to look around the corner and go talk to the people. Any second now. Right about now, in fact. Yep. You're just going to walk around the corner, and go see the people. That's what you're going to do, right… _now._

You can't do it. Damn it. Okay, deep breaths, you can definitely-

_"Gemer laizt, jagokal gatad laif'weh'fev?"_

_"Tsai wotsag. Yai, tez."_

_"Ertay za yakotska'manoyn, bostet."_

Hoooly shit, those are voices coming closer and they do not sound very nice at all. You flail around in search of somewhere to hide, consider digging a hole in the wall and fling yourself into the grass instead. Two people round the corner.

You can't make out much since they're dark forms against dark hills in the dark, but at least they look human. That's a good start. And they're not shuffling or anything, so they're probably not zombies.

The reek of rotting flesh that sidles over to you, nudges you with waggling eyebrows and then rips down your nostrils makes you reconsider that.

_"Seg, bvo laif tsai'nayus. Gemer, ertay gatahd laif'manoyn?"_

"_Ertay, sozmkat er- ln. Laif'nayus…"_ One of them tilts its head back for a moment. "_Tez!"_ Two luminous eyes catch the moonlight and glint at you. That is _not_ a human. "_Laif eyusait'nayus!"_

"_Sozmkat!"_ The other one darts past its companion and _oh shit_. You leap to your feet almost right from lying down. Hell yes, metre-high jumps, you would be thinking if you weren't terrified out of your mind. Instead you're jabbering something like "Don'tkillmedon'tkillme!" You dart sideways and race along the block-high rise. The blocks pitch and leap to trip you up. Behind you a hoarse bark sounds, sending shivers down your spine. It is _not _a human noise. The probably-zombies lope behind you. The grass streaks past you. More barks rend the air.

_Fast_ zombies. You are going to have _words_ with whoever made this game.

You leap up blocks with more grace than is reasonable. Up, up, up, grabbing ledges with no regard for mud. They jump higher, claw-fingers reaching. You dodge. Dart. Breach the hill, trip down its other side. They are faster, surrounding you. Long strides and inhuman grace. You spring and hop but too slow. They know the blocks. The things dance, eyes luminous, baiting you. Shepherding you. This way, that way. Faster, faster. Your breath is hitching. They reach, you duck under their claws. You can't think. You just run and you know they can stop you in your tracks but they _don't-_

_"Sayiz!"_

Something shrieks through the air and lands with a sick _thuk_ in one's head. It falls, tripping up another, bringing down a bunch, wow that's really stupid. You can hardly believe that happened. You skitter to a stop a few blocks away, gasping for breath. On a hill light flares and comes flying, a blazing arc through the air! It lands in the middle of them and fizzles out in the damp grass, soliciting snickers for the anticlimax.

"_Sayiz, zkaygver!"_ You start backing away from their diverted attention. Another arrow comes soaring and hits one in the chest. You wait for it to fall over, and watch in horror as the thing just grunts and snaps the shaft in two.

_"Ki! Za maver! Skovlat!"_

Your saviour is yelling from a nearby ridge, their silhouette flickering by the light of a torch. The bow they're holding is almost taller than them. They nock another huge arrow to it as you continue to creep away, the zombie horde bickering. There's pretty much no way they're not a zombie horde. Then as one they rush towards their attacker, spilling over the blocks with far more speed than they showed for you. The archer keeps yelling at them and firing flaming arrows. All miss.

You have a feeling it's time to get out of here. There's no way you can help that guy. You turn on your heel just as they start screaming. Oh shit. You waver, looking from the writhing mass the hill's become to the deserted plains.

Then they _stop_ screaming.

You run.

Your misery levels have been steadily climbing for the past however-long it's been since you got away again. That person's screams still echo in your ears. You've encountered a couple more pockets of voices, but you've been careful to avoid them this time. They all spoke that same weird language and not a single one sounded properly human.

But hey, if there's one person around, surely there are more? That guy had to come from somewhere. It might've been a better idea to angle for the direction they'd come from, actually. Except for all the zombies. Which you're pretty sure ate the person alive nope you're not going there.

It is far too dark to be walking around having just seen… _that_ happen.

That's when the ground falls out from under you.

The rush of adrenaline is redundant as soon as it hits. Your back protests with a shriek as it collides with rock and your shoulder blades give furious agreement. The squeal you make most likely breaks any glass in the vicinity. It takes a moment for the black spots over your eyes to clear, but when they slink off to the back of your brain where they belong, you can see you missed a smattering of metre-wide holes in the ground. Except for the one you hit. Moonlight filters through them, holding up the cave with crystal pillars in otherwise liquid darkness. The ceiling's maybe four blocks away. You attempt to twitch your fingers and find them unwilling to move. Ouch. You have a feeling that hurt far less than it should have, though. That's… pretty fortunate! You guess.

Oh god you're in a dark cave and just made a loud noise this is not fortunate in the slightest.

Terror snakes up your spine and the marrow of your limbs. The dull throb in your back dissipates. Eyes huge to take in as much light as possible, barely moving, barely breathing, you listen.

"It's f͔̻̯͚u͓̝͇̩n̺̺̩n̗̩y̫̩̹̯̩ how you thi̯̳̗̬̠̫̯n̰̱͎̪̯̭̗k͎̥͍ it'sts͎s͇͓i̙̠t͕͖s̟̖̜ an o̶̧̯̦͈̭ͅP͟tion. Re̹͔͚̯a̙lly funny. I'm laul͇̠͇̣ͅa͞U̟̮͙͎͘͠g͎h̬i̻̗͈̟ng̬͉̟g̣͇̟ my arse off her̤ͅe͈͕̙͎ͅ at howf͔f̦̮̰͖̝̤̹f͍͔u̱̖͎̤̠̥n̙̖̭͈̗̟ͅn̩ͅF̷̢͖̲̱̙͠U͍̘͓͓͉̻̜̩̕͠͝n̨̟̠̻̕n̞͎̭̯̳͓̩y̠̟̣̼y it is."

Holy shit that is glitchy. You can _hear _its glitchiness, static lacing every word that is evidently English now? No, it's not, more like English laid on top of that other language. The voice itself is weird too, like the whisper of wind through the cracks in a crypt, though it carries. You heard ones like it while you were walking. Just like them, it's creepy as hell.

"I ḍ͍̙͖̹o̮̥̪͇̣͖nd̘̯̼̯̰͚͇on͈̞̬̳̲'̠t̘͍̼̦͈̱̝ see wH̶͎̠̥̮̥͎̺͞ý̙̺̬ you nen͉̱͈E̪̤̼̲̕E͚̩̲͜͞n̲̰̖̬͎e̝ed _me_! Why's i̭̳t͉i͖̗̜͇t̤i̸̠͍͖̩͈̭͈͈͘͡T̷̼͎͡i̝t̰͎̞̻̤ any o̸̟͟͠f _m̝͇̙̖͙Y̟̥̯̞̟͎y̮̺͚̻̺̬̰m̯̝͓̺̪̞̞y͉̲̞̟̳ _businee͍̫͇̺̤̗͎S͉̭͙̠̟̘͚s̩?"

A different one, shrill and scratchy with a hiss on its heels and the occasional click thrown in for good measure. Its words flail around in eagerness and smack into each other.

"She's yoo͔͈͉̬͓̱͙̹͜Ụ̤͕͉r̡͎̫̖̯̟̺̳ŗ̶̫͇̻̯͖̯́ friend too, dd̩̙͖i͕̙̙͕͓p͖̝s̲̬̰̱͓̻̠H̙̱̼̣̖h͍̥̪ṭ͇̼hit. What d'you tt̶͉̣̝̟̟h̦̝͎͉̕͘͞i̪̞N̫̜̻̰̺͢͜i̱͈͉͔̟͓̜̪ņ̨̥̱̮͞k͇̝̣̜̫k I'll do, march i̖͇̼͉͇ͅn͙̦͉͉̰͙̬ ̲̘̟̺͙̝͜i̥͜n͍͉͎̼̟n͈͚̘ ̛t̤͔̹̼͖͉̭͢Ḫ̝̠͇e̮͕̺͓r͓͎̰̙̩e͎̗̝͓ myself, take her in my arms and p͓̜̠̱̼̥̟r͕̦̱̠̯̱a̟̼̰a͍̠̲̦̩A̺͎̯ ̰͓̠̣ͅA̘̤͔̝̱A̝̞̺̱̲̪-͙͚͕̻̮͕ͅA̝͉̲̱ͅ-̬n̘̩̩̠̝c̞̮e on out again as they all gA̸̬̳̗͈̥͜p̻͙͙͎̪͇͈̖͡E̪͔͎̖̟̰̬̜e in awe? Fuck no. I don't know ą͖b̛̪̗̥̙͔a͎bo͍ų̼̤͎͓̜t͇̦͍͔̖̠ you, but I'm nO̳̮͈̣t an idiot."

"Yeah, b̸͖͚̝̱̰B̗̣̤ut.͔͇̮̹̹ͅͅ.̠̯ͅ.̝͈̼ can't you find sooM̥̟̳̬e̫̟̮̙̖̥̩m̶̭͖͚̗̜one _else _to s̴̷̢̬͙̝͉̹̯Ò͙̳̹̻̭͓̭̻E̦͈͓M̵͕̼͇̞̬͢ͅͅm̧̫ͅò̶̲̻͙͇̟̟̟̼n̡̨̻͔͠e̢͈͎ ̧͚̻̺̫É͓͔̹̠͉̘͎l҉̸̲̮̜̱s̶̻͙̬̼͢e͏͕̺͉̭͠ ̨̜͉̘̥̹͕̣̹̜͟T͔͔͕͇̬̼̰̪̗O͏͚̙̟̳̻̘͈͓͠ help out?"

"It's bE̠̩͞en two f̡̯̞̰̯̫ͅu̺͙̰̗̝̖̤c̠̱̞͝k̬̦̫̫i̙͈̦͓̭͉ng̷̤ nights. I'm not ke̯̘̖̩E̳E̢̗̣̬̬̫e̱͍̖̙̩̰͔-͔͓̲ͅe͝-͉͜ę͙̣̤̫͔͓̺ping her waiting any ff͖̙̜͕̙̮̯̮̀͡ṵ͓̻̩͉̻̪̦ͅc̼̼̠̝k̞͍̰͈͈̮̥̟͘U̼͉̭̺̪ͅF̮̣̖̠̬̟͙̗K̠̀C̷͍̗̰̯͓̫̀I̥̝N̬̳̹͎Ģ̢̳̥̝́ longer, looking for idiots who'veg̫o̪̬͎t̵̟̜͓̭̠ more of a spine than you. Or ee̙̟̪x̨̺̩̬̰̪͍x̻̱̖o̹̻̫̭̺͚͞?̻̯xoskeleton. Whatever. Don't you know whw̱̣h͢A͙̘̤̤͚͕̺t͓͞h̟̙̻̺t͕̭̩̙͚at they do to mobsw͏̫̘̬͍͕̰ͅh͔̳͚͙͓͍̰͟en they don't kik̢̦̣̲ͅi̙̗͕͈͠l̝͉l̝̞͔̦͕͡l̺͎̥̤̤͔͠ ̲̹̼̦KI̶͖̱L̨͉̥L̺̗̗̫ ̨k̴̗̭ͅi̢̺̱l͍̖̝ll them?"

There's a chitter that might be mistaken for a little laugh under some circumstances. It is not a nice noise. "I dunno, ww̵̮͜H̖̦h͖̯̯̳̀͜h̢̜̻͙͇̖̼hy dod̟o̜̤̻̩̱̘̼͟͢n̜̖-̼̦͜͜d̶̩̬o̝̹͖̬̼̯̞N̨̺̮̻̜̤͓͔͘ţ̣͉̯͜'̸̛̰͖͞t̶̵̗̥͞n't you tell mḘ͟E̵̜͕̕e͓̱̭͓͉͚ͅ?͏̪̗̻̝͞"

The gusty voice whips itself into a hurricane and _shrieks_ through your skull."_K̨̰̟ͪͦͦ͑͘͞o̵͈̩̠͚̲̙̣̦̐ͦ͐̒̄́m̾ͥͬ͗ͮ̓̂͏̡̬͙̱͕͙͙d̶͎͎̈͑̏͋͒ͣ̀̋'! Koḿ̶̝̘͖̗̺̮͎͎̍͝M̡̨͕̤͍̑̿͛̽̊ͤ̃̒d̢̟̲͙͇̮̤͍͉̺́͗ͮ̌͑͑ͮ̌̀den! _Bring En͎͓̟̩͓͈̂͑̌̍̍ͫ̓D̮̯̼̳͎ͦͯ̀͠ě͚̠̣̬̻̟̖̩ͭ̾̈́̑r͍̠̋̐ͫ̌͆̀͊͡͠erman the fuf͇̭ͧͤU̫̣̗̱̱͉̻̖̓͐ͬÙ̴̺̠̰̮̻̳͗k̫͙̥̙̘̭̾̀̿̇F̧̗̩̆̓͋̊̏͛͟Û̦͔̠̤̙̦̪̬̓̓ͯ̒͊̚̕͝͝C͉͔͈̼̓̐̊̓͟K̞̖̞̝̭̔̅̾̎͡ck over he̷̟͓̥re or I̜̥ͅ will fuU͌̽ͨ̇͋͌̉͏̵̲̗̦̺̜C̗̣͇̪͙͑ͤͤ̽̍̔̎͗̀͠ͅf̢̣̻̄̉̒ͪ̄͆̚͘U̴̴̱̒ͨ͆ͫ̚C̺̯̻̙͈͖̬̣̠͋͐̿ͩ̒ͪk̔ͨ҉̸̗I̫͎̝͙̦̲̖̓̒̆ͧͩ̑́king kill you͓͚̙̦͓̺̥̕͜ͅ! You are _gog̴̛̳̣̥͎̥͒̐͜o̤̹͓͈̣̼͍̯̊́ ͈̙̗̖̪̹̓̎̀̾ͧͩ̈́͛ͅg̛̖̟͖͙̖ͭ͊͗ͤ̾ͯ̆̅̄͜o͙̱̣̥̣̬̭̱ͭͤͭ̓̄̓ͥͯͅi̡͇̮ͭ͐̏̂G̷̜̺̯̓͒ͮ̕͟Ǫ͔̰̘̦̹̳͙͎̃ͯ̿̿ͭ̀͝I͋̔̊̀͏͉̫̻͕̼͔̰ͅn̜͖̦ͮͦ̍ͨ̇̿ͫg̝͙̦͉̞̰͔̻̒̏ͦ́g _to help Crë̼̝̪̤̿̓e̷͍̞̦̱͚͉̭ͣͮ͌͑ͥ̅̈́ͬe̸̺͎̜͖̫̙̼ͧ̾̒ͧE̬̺͈̰͓̣̋e̵̼̤̖͇͋̓͐͗ͦ͝ě̘̀eper! There̷̟͓̥'s no wA̧͔̱͟y you _won't _when I'm throught̢͔̹̺͈͇͙͙͋̿ḩ͚͈̻̠̯̯͍͒ͯ̾̐̃̾͘h̨̛̘̫̮̖̹̤̉̏ͦ̃ͩ͠Rͤ̅̑̍͘͏̢͔̬̻͚̩̠̩̹Ô̮̞̞͙̭̮͔͚̽͌Ư͓̳͓͚̓͆ͬͭͭ̄̐̃͢ͅg̷̤̘͚̤ͨ̑̈̇ͭ͋͜ḧ̫̹̱͚̝͚͍́ͨ͢͡H͙̭̠̠̗̦̥̟̞̒ͩͩ̔̌ͦ͒̿̚͟͝ ̟͉̔ͪͧ̉́͢W̛͚̗ͪ͊͟͡ͅĬ̗̌̾͜͠t͚̪̩̳̓̔̍̊̊̑ͯ̃̚͜h̟̮̝͉͉̤̦̘̄̓ͫ̇̃͌͟ͅ ̵̰̬͍̘̝͆ͫͭ͑̾W͋ͮ̓̍͋̐͋҉̸̦̲͚͚͡I̫͔͕̺ͯ̇ͧ̈́͘͢͡T̡͔̬̐̓̾̀ͬ͊͂̾H̟̜͇̟͈ͫ̓̀ ̱̞̦̺̲̲͔̦̗͛ͯ́ẙ͍̼ͨͮͫ͑͑ͭ̚͠͠O̻͚̽̿̇̚U̵̗̭͓̜͕̰ͮͨ̋̌ with yoƠ̘̹͚͟u!"

The other one chitters again, though this time it's more scared than malicious. This is so weird. "Okay! Oko̞͎̳̠̪̯͙Ka̙͈̰ay, fine, sto̝̲͇̲pop yelling, god. I'll go get hi̬̺͓̹m, just, like, w̝͘a̭͔̜a̡W̷̗͕̥A͙̤̲͎̱I͏̹͉̜t͍̩͈̹̪̙̲ait, oko̖K̻͔̟̖͔a̪͙̣y̤̝͜ ̨͈̭o͙͓̺̮̘̳̠k̦͓̼̼̕a̮̝͍̦-͏̮̰a͖̣̝͞-͢a̴͉̩̱y͇̤̣̞̝̩̝ay?"

Whispery Thing hisses. Thank god it's back to normal volume. "Fif̧̖̝̣̥I͔̫͔̻̯͕Ne̡̳̣͉̻͙̼ne. Don't tT̷̤̟̫̥͇̙A͇̲͕̦ake forev̻̭̣͚̝̳̗͘er, you shs̯͎̭h̸̗̬͇̹̖͙ͅẖ̞̱̩̼I̻̻̤̙̘̬̣T͔̝͕̺͜S̢̠̱̙h̳̘̝I̺̮̹̭̟̜̮t̩̤͞it. I'll be wai͔̝̪i̠̘ ̣̘̫̭̺̝͡i͇ ̣̺i͙iting."

"'Kay, byY̕Y̗̼̭̤̜e̘̣Y̨̼̪͚ee!" That's a chirp like none of the yelling happened. Shortly following is a scuttling, drawing closer. Oh shit that does not sound like a good thing approaching. Now would be a brilliant time to get up and get the hell away, only your back does not agree and in fact does not agree with a _passion_. You wriggle to the chagrin of your limbs and resort to dragging yourself along the stone, which works for around half a block before you have to give up. All you can do is imagine how invisible you most definitely are and listen to that horrible skittering.

It stops. Something chirrs, sounding… surprised? Then there's a slower clicking, like the thing is creeping towards you instead. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

"Hello there!"

It is speaking in another language and you understand it perfectly now.

What the fuck.

"Wasn't expecting meat to fall through the ceiling!"

What the _fuck._

-{}-

You are now Sima's sister.

Currently you are sitting on the couch, dicking around on your phone. You listen through gritted teeth to your little brother Mac talking about something inane with your father and your littler brother Rangi is making stupid noises in a corner. You are so, so close to the end of your final year of high school. You have _plans_. Once you move to Dunedin, where you will go flatting with your best friends and go to university, you will get away from your shitty family. It's going to be great.

"Ngaire!"

"What?" you snap. Whatever your mother is asking, you really don't care.

"Go wake Sima up. Dinner's almost ready."

You growl and throw your phone down, stomping into the hall with your black hair streaming out behind you. Yours is the kind of hair that streams. Wrenching open Sima's door without regard for the headache you're vaguely aware she has, you poke your head inside. Does she ever clean this place? It looks like shit. And she'd better not think you can't see that Justin Bieber poster. Ugh, she is _so_ obnoxious.

"Oi, get up. Dinner." You scowl at her bed. When there's no response you groan and step inside, marching to the bedside. "Get up already, I'm not your fucking-"

You stop.

She's not in the bed.

"Sima, you faggot." You look around the room, taking in the window that's locked from the inside, the lack of space behind furniture shoved against the walls. With a growl you turn on your heel and stalk back into the lounge. "She's not in her room."

"What?" Your dad looks up in surprise. "I didn't hear her c-c-come out. Her door squeaks, I always hear it."

"Well, she's not in _bed_," you say with as much exasperation as you can pack into one sentence, "so I don't know _where _she is." Your dad leaps to his feet and rushes past you, so you roll your eyes and flop back onto the couch. There's your phone. Back to texting.

Your father scuttles back in a moment later, black eyes huge and dark face pale. "Sssshe's not in th-th-th-there. I c-c-can't find her. I l-l-looked everywhere." That is a lot of stutter for three rushed sentences. He doesn't do that often.

Mum pokes her head around the corner. "She's got to be there somewhere. Look again." He dashes back out and in yet again.

"She's n-n-not, th-th-th-th-th, fuck, pile of d-d-d-d-dust on her bed, I don't know where she is."

Wow, he's actually swearing? He never does that. It's enough to catch your attention. The thing with the dust is pretty weird too.

The look on his face fills your stomach with lead.

Something is very wrong.

**A/N: WE COULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED.**

**Hnng I don't like the word 'faggot' but my characters speak how they like and it's a thing people say a lot. Ngaire is pronounced ng-eye-ray. The ng sound is as in singer. That's Maori for you.**


	4. In the Backs of the Eyes

You seem to have turned to stone sometime after the point where you could understand languages you've never heard before. The rhythmic clicking starts up again like the thing is creeping towards you. "You don't have a weapon with you, do you? 'Cause that could make things annoying. And it would suck." The slow _tick, tick, tick _of it creeps in from your left now. You think it's circling you. "You don't have a weapon! That's good. You don't have much at all, do you? Not even a little carry-skin-thing!" Is it insinuating you'd need a weapon for something? Oh god. You have a horrible feeling it's going to try to eat you.

"Uh," you begin. Well done, there's a good start. It stops. You can practically hear the cloud of curiosity buzzing around it. "Yeah, I d-d-d-d-don't have a weapon, and I don't really n-n-n-n-know where I am either. I-I-I-I'm rrrreally sorry that I… fell through your ceiling, I guess? But I can j-j-j-j-just, like, leave. If you want." You're not sure if you can actually follow through with that, but it's worth a shot.

It chitters in surprise again. "Hey, you talk back! None of you things ever do. 'Cause you're all deaf!" Wow, are the people around here actually deaf? But that guy expected you to hear him! Nothing makes sense. You're not sure you want to know what you're talking to, either. "I dunno about you leaving, though. I'm kinda hungry." Oh god.

"Um," you say desperately. "Look, I j-j-j-j-just, please don't, I-I-I-I, uh." Fuck. You can't even start a sentence. You're panicking. You _can't move can't move can't move_.

It makes a sound like someone shaking a tin of rocks. You have a feeling it's supposed to be laughter. "I'm kidding! You're funny and stupid. I gotta go get my friend! I don't have time to kill you and eat you. I'll leave you for Skeleton to kill, that'll be easier."

"How about no-one k-k-k-k-kills me at all?" you squeak.

"But that's no fun!"

"I think it's a lot of fun, p-p-p-p-personally!"

"You're such a killjoy." You're pretty sure the clicks of its footsteps come in eights. Ohhh shit, it's coming closer. "At least get up off your lazy arse so I can see you! Maybe I won't kill you if you're gonna be so pissy about it. Or not!" Again with the gravelly cackle. Oh god it's right by your ear. You really wish you could turn your head right now, and at the same time you really, really don't. Paralysis is popping in and out as though it's not quite sure whether it's supposed to stick around or not.

"Ugh, hold on…" There's some weird clicking and rushing of air for a moment in the space beside you.

Something spears you in the side.

It flicks you over as something else catches you from the other direction. A screech bounding off the cave walls, you're left sitting up with eight luminous circles staring you in the face. Two small ones in the centre; the largest pair on either side of them; two slightly smaller pairs beyond that, one above and one below. You meet them with huge eyes and a trembling mouth. What the hell are you looking at? Two strong, prickly… things… are resting on your shoulders, keeping you upright.

The blackness splits open, baring glinting fangs and two enormous mandibles.

Holy shit.

"You're _adorable!"_ you squeal, shaking off the last traces of paralysis to touch the thing's face as it screeches in surprise.

"I'm not adorable! I'm _scary!_ There's a _difference!"_ You poke the space between its smallest eyes, getting an impression of prickly setae. Then it jerks its head back, stabs its mandibles into your wrist and skitters backwards. You recoil with a yelp. The weights on your shoulders vanish. The eight red eyes are considerably smaller now. "Sorry, I didn't mmmmean to, uh… offend you? I guess?" It's too far away for those glowing eyes to illuminate the rest of it anymore, which is disappointing. You are _craving_ a better look at this thing. "What are you? If it's okay tttto ask, I mean. 'Cause you look really cool!" you add in an effort to get on its good side, getting to your feet carefully. It's safe to presume that those eyes are made for seeing in darkness like this. Either that or it has some other way of sensing its way around. This is so interesting! You never thought you'd get to talk to a sapient giant arthropod that lives in a cave in a video game and has also threatened to eat you multiple times in a language you don't know. Yeah, this keeps getting weirder.

"I'm a _spider,"_ says the thing, sounding hurt. "A _scary_ spider, dipshit. I can eat you. You should be scared."

"You're a spider? But you have mandibles, not chelicerae! And spiders don't have teeth, either! You must be not a true spider, like, some kind of close relative or something, maybe?"

There is a short silence while you mull this over.

"Dude, you were talking, but all I heard was nerd, nerd, nerd." You mumble defensively to yourself and tug on your bangs. "You're like my friend! He's a nerd too. Only he's all big and scary and stuff and you're just kinda pathetic." Mumble mumble you don't even know what you're saying by now. Time to change the subject. You still really want to see this thing.

"Um, you don't think you could, like, step into the light?" you chance. "So I can s-s-s-s-s…" Shit, how can you replace that, what's a better word, no you can't think of anything. "Yeah."

It chitters like a bee is tapdancing on sandpaper in its throat. "Oh right, you things can't see in the dark, can you? 'Cause you're dumb and useless!" All the same it clicks backwards into the nearest moonlit pillar. Revealed are eight long limbs like broken twigs peppered with dark grey setae, followed by a fat abdomen and considerably smaller thorax and head. It can't be a true spider without a cephalothorax! You wonder how else it differs from true spiders. Maybe it has more senses than them or something? This is so interesting! It's fully coated in cetae rather than having an armoured body, too. A glistening grin splits its bowling ball head. It's hard to tell from here, but you're pretty sure the inside of its mouth is lined with more inwards-facing teeth. That is kind of terrifying.

"Scared yet?" Its mandibles twitch as it speaks, though its mouth doesn't move. You've got to wonder how it makes all the sounds it needs to. Also it's creepy as fuck.

It's probably a good idea to humour it. "Yeah, you're pretty freaky! Like, wow, that's a lot of t-t-t-t-t-t-t… fangs."

It puffs itself up and raises itself on its front legs, managing to look almost haughty despite its huge grin. "About time! You're slow on the uptake." This thing is incredibly skilled in making you feel like shit.

"And you're slow on the doing-what-you're-_yatzeg_-_told_, Spider." Fwiiiit-_thuk_ holy shit that is an _arrow in your arm_. You shriek as its momentum topples you. "Are you _talking_ to this thing?" hisses the voice like a graveyard's breath from somewhere in the dark. You are too busy staring at the feathered shaft that runs right through the fatty part of your arm and comes out the other side, its flint tip dyed red. Not that you can see most of that since it's pitch black. The high-pitched keen ringing in your ears like a mosquito's death-whine is probably coming from you.

"It _talks_, honest," says the spider that's evidently called Spider sheepishly. You'd be extremely impressed with the exoticness and originality of that if you were not currently flipping the fuck out.

"It _talks_. Yeah, sure, I can believe that, or I could if it wasn't as totally fucking stupid as all the other shit you make up. They don't talk to us because they can't _hear_ us, _baltay_."

"This one can! It's pretty stupid but it's not all that bad. Only if it keeps making that noise I'm gonna rip its head off."

"Hey, something we can agree on." You are dimly aware of clicking footsteps approaching. An adult-sized form crouches beside you. A few somethings, thin and sharp, close around the shaft of the arrow.

It rips the thing out by the tip and makes you scream again.

"Calm down, it wasn't through your head. Would've given you an interesting cultural headdress, but it's not as much fun when you don't have a weapon. Stop _screaming_, give it a second and it'll be good as fucking new." To your surprise, it's right. The fiery agony is a mere dull throb after only a few eternities. That is not how arrow wounds work and this is ridiculous.

You love video games. So, so much.

The somethings that are probably fingers wrap around your arm without regard for the _freaking arrow wound_ and yank you to your feet. "You can hear me?" snap the coffin lids and gravestones.

Everything you try to choke out gets wind of the situation halfway up your throat and scrambles to get back down again. Eventually you manage to grunt something that sounds at least somewhat like an affirmative and find yourself staring into two empty sockets blacker than the cave. Their depths flicker with an indigo pinprick each. "Well that's new."

"Everything's p-p-p-p-p- uh, new to me too, believe me." You give a little laugh, enraptured. It's like there's something moving in those tiny lights, right on the edge of sight. "Uh. Hi."

"_Kalab_." Whatever this new thing is flings you away and strides off, steps resonant on the stone. "_Kalab_, this is weird. Get over here, _eyusait."_ It takes you a moment to realise it's talking to you. Rubbing your arm and cautiously feeling your way, you follow it to the circle of moonlight Spider's still standing in. The arachnid looks bewildered. Then a yellowed foot is visible and-

It's a walking skeleton.

It is a real, live (or dead, you guess?) walking skeleton, bones perfectly stable in the air like they're held in place by wires. Except for how they're not. It's over a head taller than you, completely fleshless, yellowed by time and latticed with scratches from who-knows-what.

And it is _terrifying._

"Yeah, take a good look. Not many of you things get to see this without also seeing arrows in their everything, so you'd better be relishing this. Commit it to memory. Tell your kids about it."

It holds out humeri, radii and ulnae with its phalanges in the air like any living person would. Only it's made of bones and that is far too fluid a movement for something that should be hanging in some doctor's office and it is _so creepy._ "Abject terror is understandable. I know all this awesome is a little hard to take in all at once. Fuck, I just used Creeper's fancy-as words again, didn't I." It mandible moves up and down as it talks even though it has no lips or tongue or _voicebox_ to form the syllables with. Though it's locked in a skeletal grin, it _smells_ like smirk and _feels_ like smirk. 'I can't believe it's not smirk,' Katie might say if she could read your mind and was anywhere near you right now. You just made yourself sad again.

The spider giggles, which sounds more like a pencil being sharpened. "It must be contagious. I knew she'd make you a big fat nerd!"

"But being around Enderman hasn't made you any less stupid. Oi, _eyusait,_ get over here." It beckons you with a wave of what you should probably think of as a hand rather than a bunch of creepy-as bones. You kind of don't want to move in the slightest ever again, but you also don't want it to shoot you so you resign to obeying at snail's pace. Eventually you're about as close as you're willing to get and stop.

"Yeah, just stand three fucking blocks away."

"I'm p-p-p-pretty okay here, actually," you mutter, folding your arms and hunching your shoulders. It manages to roll its eyes without having any eyes to roll.

"Whatever. What are we going to do with you?"

"Ignore me and let me go home?"

The spider just laughs again. That's about as much answer as you need. You were kind of hopeful for a second there. "I say we should take it to Enderman!" it continues, bouncing. "He's not as nerdy as Creeper but he's nerdier than you so maybe he knows stuff about it. Or maybe he'll just rant about it for ages without actually telling us anything."

The skeleton throws its hands in the air. "Why don't we just make it rescue Creeper for us. That'll work perfectly. Actually…" It lowers its arms, staring at you. "Ay, that could work."

"Don't I g-g-g-g, fuck, get a say in this?" you cry. There is no way you're letting them force you to do whatever!

"Nope. Being able to hear us doesn't give you person privileges. Unless you'd rather I kill you right here." With one fluid movement the recurve bow that was slung across its shoulders is in its hands. A serrated arrowhead makes a target of your left eye. "I wouldn't object to that." The world beyond the arrow has kind of stopped existing but you don't need to see the skeleton to feel it grinning. Fuck, you're going to be forced into this anyway. The only difference between this time and every other time is that it's probably going to kill you if you don't go along with this. You are _so _sick of this happening.

"Fine. Fine, okay, let's go see the fucking whatever," you mutter, clenching your fists. The skeleton lowers its bow and radiates shiteating grin.

"Hey, I didn't even have to kill you. Praise Notch, it's a motherfucking miracle."

"We should go, then!" chirrups Spider. You're fuming now, so its saccharine disposition is just annoying. "Let's go through your cave, Skeleton, it's quicker!"

"Whatever." It slings its bow back over its scapulae and beckons as it marches back the way it came, disappearing into the dark. From somewhere slightly above waist height the spider beams its slick grin up at you.

"Come on already! If Skeleton shoots you again you're going to make more annoying noises and that just sucks for everyone." Never mind the fact that _you'd_ be the one getting shot, of course. You've got yourself into one huge clusterfuck here and you are regretting absolutely everything. Gritting your teeth and hunching your shoulders, you chance a step into the blackness. There is a startling lack of balrogs rushing out to eat your face, so you slouch onwards. The spider's scuttling follows less than a block behind. In other circumstances you'd be far more worried about walking in complete blackness. This time, though, caution took one look at your festering anger and got right the fuck out of there.

You make little screaming noises when you smack into a block you can't see. The spider looks at you strangely.

-{}-

You are now Skeleton. Yes, that's actually your name. Or, more correctly, you do not have a name because you're not a stupid Minecrafter who has to rely on a bunch of syllables to tell you apart from other people. It's all in the pronunciation.

Anyway, you are now Skeleton, and tonight hasn't gone quite how you imagined it. You expected Spider to be easier to convince, for one, but all you did was embarrass yourself by yelling at him. Then there's the Minecrafter. Of _course_ you were expecting a Minecrafter to fall through the ceiling. Who _wouldn't_ expect that? You get so many fucking Minecrafters falling through the fucking ceiling that you don't even know what to _do_ with them. Might as well throw another one on the pile. And ones that hear you, man, you've got _loads._ You're up to your cervical vertebrae in the _yatzeg _things.

Yeah, this is weird as fuck and you don't know what's going on. You've got some burning curiosity here, but Creeper takes priority over everything. Even how much of an idiot Enderman is. Really, to the Nether with that guy. You are _not_ looking forward to his smug frog-face when you tell him you need his help.

The Minecrafter makes weird noises behind you, but you keep walking because you are not going to pass up the dramatic exit you just made. You hop up a couple of levels to where the high ceiling and floor are pinched together, leaving an opening not quite two blocks square. Your sixth sense has sketched blueprints of the world for you since the other five decided to be useless. It's not like you could explain it to idiots who have to rely on stupid senses like sight, but that's what we have narration for. Ah, narration, you would be thinking if you were a meta piece of shit, what would we do without you?

As you duck through the hole, the extremely helpful narration could approximate what you see beyond as the edges of blocks (is stone, rough) sloping around two metres. You can't 'see' the ceiling well since it's nearly level, but the angles of the almost circular space are clear. So are those of the tunnel that skips upwards (is wind, cold, origin right) to your right. The nest of bracken and silver ferns (is dead, dry) against the wall to your left has so many edges it's practically a scribble. It's surrounded by Creeper's collection of flowers (is dead). She tells you she loves the colours and you tease her about being _insensitive_ to your _condition._ Nearby is the frame (is stone, smoothed artificially) of the ledge you 'sleep' on, the ground around it littered with your carvings (is bone, is wood) and a few tools (is flint, sharp). The place is a tip, which is nothing new. For all Creeper's pretences, she's about as obsessed with cleanliness as you are, which is not in the slightest. At least it's tidier than it was two nights ago, when you kind of. Uh. You didn't throw a tantrum or anything. You were just a little… _surprised_ to find out what happened to Creeper. You didn't throw anything at all. Absolutely nothing was thrown whatsoever. Yep.

You pick your way through the debris (is hazard, avoid), Spider's movement (is click, spider, moderate speed, not hunting) recognisable behind you. The Minecrafter's movement (is quiet) is still unfamiliar. You weren't concentrating earlier when your sockets were trained on it, so you didn't get much of an idea of its body. When you get to Enderman you'll make sure to do that. For now you ignore it, skull full of Creeper and how much you'll make them pay for so much as _considering_ using her. Yeah, you'll show them. If she hasn't already blown holes in half their settlement. That's probably what's happened. You're going to get there and find her standing all smug in a burning wreckage, grooming. 'Oh, you took your time, didn't you? I was getting bored.' It'll be great.

You turn down the tunnel (is wind, cold, source ahead). Clattering and swearing from behind you cut the void between the edges as the Minecrafter trips all over your cave. What kind of language is that? It's sure not Tongue. "A broken bone for a broken bone carving," you call, not bothering to turn around. "I've slaved for hours making those things, they're fucking masterpieces." The Minecrafter growls under its breath.

"What about the wood ones?" Spider chirps.

"I'll find something to break."

Finally the two of you and the Minecrafter are out in the night air, the abyss of the sky disconcerting you for a moment because it always does. Sixty-three years and you're still not used to the bloody thing. How can it have so few edges? Creeper's asked you before if the stars have edges and you say no, of course they don't, they're fucking stars. _Duh._ You wait for Spider to scuttle off in the direction of his and Enderman's cave, watching the steady pump of his heart and fizz of his brain. Evidently older skeletons can pick out individual thoughts from that buzzing mess. You have a feeling they're full of shit, though, especially when it comes to minds like Spider's. Him, coherent thought? Yeah, nah.

The Minecrafter stops beside you, and you get a glimpse of the simmering fire in its head. Is that anger? You're pretty sure that's anger. You've never been good at emotions. It looks from you to Spider (is glare), features too round for their edges to stand out against the blaze in its brain. "Are wwwww-" It growls. "Going or what?"

"No, I was kidding when I screamed at Spider for being a _davat_." Feeling stupid for hesitating long enough that it noticed, you square your shoulders and set off after Spider. The practically tangible fury radiating from the Minecrafter makes you grin. This thing is far too easy to piss off.

This entrance to the cave yawns out of a hillside. Spider is currently skittering down the slope, legs long enough that he doesn't have to jump most blocks. You hop down after him. The big cave system he and Enderman live in isn't too far from here. You never remember where it is, though, because you'd prefer to have as little idea where Enderman is as possible. He is just that _kind,_ lovable and _caring_. The Minecrafter lags behind, taking the blocks with about as much grace as a legless cow. Does it never go outside or something? Dumbass thing. The sooner you figure out what's up with it, the better; being in the vicinity of one without teaching it all the exciting ways it can die by arrows is too weird. Why hasn't it even _tried_ to run? You sure have high hopes for this thing's intelligence.

You spend a dull couple of minutes reminding Spider to stop admiring the scenery and find the bloody cave already. The Minecrafter is cooling into more a soggy rag than a boiling pot, trudging with the heats of its hands shoved in some kind of fold in its garment. What does that even mean? You have no idea. You're worse with body language than you are with thoughts.

"Hey, there it is!" Spider jerks his head towards a nearby sloping pit. Its stone tongue lolls a few blocks away from it. "That leads to one of the big caverns, our cave is kinda off it. I wonder if anyone else is around."

"That'd make things interesting," you comment. The Minecrafter stares glumly at the entrance. "Head in then, Spider. Be a good host."

"'Kay!" He scuttles inside, claws clicking on the rock. You look at the Minecrafter to make sure it goes inside, and find yourself sharing a glance with the pits of its eyes.

_oh-_

If you had any concept of colour you might say something about the maroon pinpoints at the back of its goo-filled sockets. Maybe you could mention the flurries of murky green that dart along its edges and neural pathways, twisting in the four chambers of its heart. But you don't, so all you can say is that it is _weird as fuck._ You suddenly understand nothing.

"A-a-a-a-a-a, uh, gonna wait out here forever or can we g-g-g-g-get this over with?"

You snap out of its bizarre gaze, shaking your skull. What kind of animal has a heart with only four chambers? All its major veins, and for that matter minor veins and organs, are in the wrong places. Some of its organs you've never seen before and others it's missing completely. "I'm fucking enchanted with how patient you are. Really, you just can't be beat in a patience-off." Feeling like an idiot for the second time in less than an hour, you stride after Spider. You're far too conscious of the coruscant _thing_ slouching along behind you. What _is_ it?

_Zzzt!_ The Minecrafter shrieks. You whip around to see it kicking almost a block in the air, clawing at five long edges wrapped around its throat.

"So I found this nasty slimebug following you," says the fingers' owner conversationally. It gestures to the Minecrafter with its gargantuan free hand.

"Would you like to crush it or shall I?"

**A/N:** **Ah, cliffhangers, how I love you.**

**Enter player 3c! Woop woop. I swear things get done eventually. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully. Also my paragraphs look a lot bigger in Word and Google Docs. Darn it FF.**


	5. Meet the South

You are now Sima. You are choking to death. It is not a pleasant experience and your current thought process is mostly swear words and sentence fragments. They go something like fuck fuck fuck can't breathe can't breathe please PLEASE can't breathe fuck please let go fuck please please please fuck

"Enderman Enderman Enderman _it is not for strangling!_" screeches the spider. It tackles whatever's holding you and the pressure on your neck vanishes, the ground catching you with enough force to make a scream slam its way out of your crushed windpipe. Your incredibly eloquent thought process continues along those lines as you gasp for breath. You don't really register what the things are saying.

"You must be blind too because it's not a slimebug it's a Minecrafter! Are you going senile?"

"No, fuck, get _off_. Are you _drooling_ on me?"

"No!"

"Yeah, he is. Spider-drool face paint. It suits you."

"Skeleton, get him _off!_"

"Let me think about that."

"Don't think about it, you imbecile, _do_ it!"

"Noooo, don't do it! I wanna hug him!"

"You'll thank me later for letting him hug you, Enderman. Just you wait."

"_Skeleton!_"

"Fiiiine, I'm getting off, grumpy douche. You're a big fat grumpy douche. Grumpy douchey grump."

"Hey, another thing we agree on."

"Don't encourage him."

Weirdly, you're able to breathe again already, and manage to sit up. You squint through blurry vision and a heaving chest at the spider. It's getting its legs into gear and stepping off some long black blob lying in the grass; the skeleton stands a little way off, radiating smirk again. Some kind of luminous purple dust is swirling lazily in the air above the black thing like a cloud of midges. You wobble to your feet, really over all of this and kind of wanting to cry. When the blob flings up a stick-thin arm longer than you are tall you almost fall over again. You realise its twiggy legs are even longer, ending in feet bigger than flippers. They're tipped with sharp toes the length and shape of thick rulers. Through a complicated motion that involves a lot of angles the towering _thing_ stands.

It flexes flat-tipped fingers as long as your head is tall and hands that length again before raising them to clutch its cinderblock head. You're used to people being taller than you but holy fuck it is literally twice your height. After screwing luminescent eyes shut for a moment, its cracks them open again and looks around groggily for a moment. Its stare catches on you.

The best way to describe its gaze would be _burning._

The magenta fires of its eyes pierce your pupils and graze your retinas. They zip down your optic nerves and stick hooks into your lizard brain, rooting you to the spot with abject terror. For the second time in far too short a while the world beyond them kind of stops existing. In the blurry area on the edges of the world of its eyes its lip curls, revealing gargantuan black fangs. Its fists lower. Muscles tense beneath its scaly hide. You are waiting for something to happen.

And suddenly, nothing happens.

"Huh," it says, brow creasing in puzzlement. The rest of the world, with its mild chill and muddiness and darkness, floods back in to fill the gap that absolutely nothing left. Its eyes seem more pretty than terrifying. You can't remember what all the fuss was about. It's been a pretty horrible afternoon-evening-night-you're not even sure, you guess. Maybe the stress or all the times you've been grievously injured and/or threatened by demonic creatures in a video game are getting to you.

"That was anticlimactic," comments Skeleton. "Losing your touch, Enderman?"

"Fuck you, I can fly into an uncontrollable rage whenever I damn well want," the black thing retorts, shooting a glare at the skeleton. It loosens bowling ball fists at its sides, and you're pretty sure you see huge black spikes sliding back into the knuckles. It doesn't extend its fingers completely, though, because if it did they'd brush along the ground.

"No you can't!"

"Shut up, Spider."

"What if I don't _want_ to?"

"Then I'll _make_ you."

"No you won't!"

"Yes I will."

"No!"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Yes."

"Uh," you interrupt, flinching as they all look at you. "Ssssssss, fuck, hi, I'm Sima, what are you?" you venture. If you're nice to it maybe it won't strangle you again.

"Is it _talking_ to us?" asks the black thing, incredulous. You realise with a bit of a giggle that it's actually chubby, with bulging cheeks and a sagging belly. You'd find that funnier but you still feel kind of shitty.

"Y-y-y-y-yeah, I-"

"It can hear us!" chirps the spider. You clamp your mouth shut, a little peeved that it would cut you off like that. "It's really weird and kind of stupid too but it's okay!" Now you're very peeved. You begin to fume.

"It can- what?" The black thing, what'd they call it, _kaizua_ or something, looks from you to the spider. "What the fuck?"

"Yeah, we have about as much idea of what's going on as you do about anything." The skeleton wrenches a blade of grass out of the ground as though it insulted its mother and begins peeling it apart with calcareous fingers. "Too much to hope you'd know anything about it?"

The black thing stares at you again. "Yeah, I- I have no idea," it concedes in the tone of 'I have to pluck out my toenails with tweezers and pour acid on them'. Well isn't that a _shame_. Nobody has any more idea about what's going on than you and also they all want to murder you. "Well, what the fuck else do you want, Skeleton, or did you just come here to show off your most recent enigma?"

The skeleton gives a sigh like a reluctant gale and tosses aside the shredded grass, training its sockets on the black thing. "Yeah, well. I kind of. Uh. Kind of need your help," it mutters, looking away and kicking at the ground. You can practically _feel_ the grin creeping across the black thing's face.

"Doth mine ears deceive me?" it chirps in falsetto, raising a gargantuan hand to the admittedly earless side of its head and striking a pose. "Is this a request for _help_ I hear from the almighty and infallible Skeleton?"

"Enderman, you're silly."

"Shut up, Spider, I'm gloating."

_"It's Creeper, you douche!"_ screeches the skeleton, the hurricane back to full blow and throwing knives at your eardrums. Then the winds die down again and it looks away, scuffing at the mud. "Fuck. The, uh. The Minecrafters. They were all, hey, you know what's a good idea, fucking kidnapping a creeper, yep, wow, we're fucking geniuses, and, uh." It waves its phalanges in the air vaguely. "Be nice to get there in time to watch her blow the place to smithereens. Y'know." The black thing's smile has vanished as quickly as it came, and it's back to what you think is safe to assume is its usual frown.

"Creeper, you say." It bares its teeth. "I told her hanging around you would get her into trouble. Fucking _told_ her. No-one ever listens to me."

"It's not my fault, _zkayg_," the skeleton hisses like the sands of time slipping through the neck of an hourglass. "We were _asleep_. I couldn't do anything."

"Always with the excuses."

"So!" chirrups the spider, like it does this a lot. "How about we go inside and figure out a plan or something! You like plans, Enderman," it adds, as a statement of fact rather than a question. The pair grudgingly agree. Throwing back an order to follow it, the black thing slinks towards the sloping pit that is the cave's entrance. It holds its twig-arms stiffly at its sides while its long legs flow from step to two-block step. The skeleton trails after it at a distance, and you scuttle after the spider as it follows.

"Wwwww, fuck, Mister Scary Black Thing is what, exactly?" you ask the spider quietly once you catch up. It seems to be slightly less horrible than the skeleton.

"He's Enderman! And he's not scary, he's just silly and a big douchebag and everyone hates him except me," the spider informs you, the movements of its legs kind of entrancing. It extends and contracts them in perfect succession, keeping its body suspended in exactly the same spot between them. You'd expect a rocking motion, but it's effortlessly stable.

"Right," you say, because there's no point arguing. You find yourself thinking about that word, 'Minecrafters'. _Eyusaitver_. Didn't the skeleton call you _eyusait_ before? Holy shit. If the English word for them is just 'Minecrafters' someone is the most uncreative person in existence and probably crying in shame from having even thought of that. If they have enough imagination to feel shame.

You drop carefully down the rocky side of the pit, nervous as the darkness swallows you. Tripping would not be fun. Eventually you reach level ground at the bottom, which is easier to navigate and dappled with moonlight. The sheepish luminance sneaks a little way into the tunnel proper, where it is mugged by the darkness and traumatised for life. You'd feel sorry for it if you were a meta piece of shit and knew about the terrible metaphors used to describe your situation.

The cave grudgingly allows Enderman's sparkly trail to ruin its absolute darkness, however. As long as you can keep the faint glow of that and its eyes in sight you can more or less follow it. "Everyone's out, ay?" asks the Spider suddenly, making you jump.

"Yes, either that or further down. Pretty sure someone's got some kind of performance or something going. It sounds like a load of tripe to me," replies the enderman, leaving you in the dark for a heart-stopping second while it turns a corner. Or he, you guess? You're pretty sure someone referred to the spider as a he, too. And that Creeper thing is evidently a girl. You've still got no idea about the skeleton, or if it even has a gender at all. After a few more turns and the odd feeling of passages too dark to see yawning to either side of you, you enter a something that gives the impression of finite space.

Almost immediately you walk into something sticky. You recoil with a shriek of surprise as you try to fight it off, a sharp clack suggesting the skeleton walked into one too. "Fuck! _Every_ time!"

The spider giggles its pencil sharpener laugh. "Got you again, _deldel!"_

"Nice one," says the enderman, a grin in its voice.

"Fuck the both of you!"

"I ssssecond that!" you complain, flicking strands of spiderweb as thick as your fingers onto the floor. Fortunately you don't know how big they are because it's almost pitch black in here. The enderman doesn't give off much light. With a rush of movement, something hefts you into the air by the back of your shirt and plonks you onto some stone ledge. Ouch.

"You. Sit. Stay. Touch nothing. The only reason for your continued existence is my allowing it, so don't try my patience." The enderman looms over you, bared fangs slightly luminous and glowing dust hanging deathly still in the air.

"O-" you choke on the vowel, shrinking. Its eyes are two purple fires in the dark again. Yep, it's gone right back to terrifying. That seems to be sufficient for it, seeing as it drifts away. There are noises of movement, presumably from the other two things sitting down. You wriggle, eyes straining in the dark. This is really irritating.

_"Oh fucking-"_

"You did it again!"

"I can't help it if your webs can't get enough of me."

"They're probably the only thing that can't, hehe."

"You're just full of burns tonight."

"You could even say he's… _on fire_."

"No shitty puns allowed, Enderman."

"My cave, my puns."

"You should light a torch, Enderman!" the spider interrupts. "Then that'll be on fire instead!"

"Why do you want me to light a torch?"

"The Minecrafter can't see in the dark 'cause it's dumb."

"And why do you care?"

"Be_cauuuuse_," the spider whines, with no further explanation. The enderman sighs. There's a rummaging and clanking for a moment before something whooshes through the air and conks you in the head. You swear at the top of your lungs and fumble something thick and wooden, eventually getting a grip on what's probably a handle. Both hands clasped around it, you stare in its general direction and wait for some kind of explanation.

And continue to wait.

"_Well?"_ says the enderman exasperatedly.

"I don't a-a-a-a-actually know what to do with it," you admit. It snorts with disbelief. At least, you think that's a snort. It's more of a warble.

"A Minecrafter that doesn't know how to use a torch? Honestly?"

"I knew it was a fucking genius," quips the skeleton from somewhere to your left, "but I never could have guessed exactly how smart it was." You mutter under your breath.

"I don't know how they use them," the spider says helpfully.

"You just strike it on a surface," the enderman growls. "Use the cave wall, stupid creature."

"Oh." You sink a little further at the insult and feel for the wall beside you. Once you find it, you flick the torch against it like it's an oversized match. With a rasp and splutter it's suddenly alight, and you almost drop it in surprise. The enormous cobwebs that lattice the walls shift in its mischievous light. That's not how torches work but okay. So much for the electric torch you were half-hoping for.

Now you can see most of the cave; it's around five blocks across, its length disappearing into the blackness on either side after about seven or eight. Its domed ceiling, thickly cobwebbed, reaches maybe five blocks. Here and there are little alcoves, sculpted carefully if with little success and filled with odd trinkets. Mostly torches. Someone has tried hard to sculpt the rock walls that aren't covered with webs into pretty shapes. They have also failed completely. Unless they were attempting to make weird blobs, in which case they succeeded.

You're sitting on a ledge one side of the cave, the skeleton and enderman seated opposite. The enderman has some kind of tall, rocky chair-like structure to sit on; it's as blobby as the rest of what could loosely be defined as the architecture. Surrounding it is a semicircular stone couch, big enough to seat a few, where the skeleton manages to lounge. The spider hangs from the ceiling, suspended by a string of web.

The three of them are staring at you and you're kind of embarrassed. "Uh," you say eloquently, clutching the torch in both hands like it's a safety blanket. Ow fuck that's hot you hold it further away.

The skeleton manages to fit more sarcasm in a slow, rattly clap than it could in an actual sentence. "Our little _eyusait_ is growing up. I think I might cry."

"You don't have tear ducts, idiot," the enderman tells it.

The skeleton shushes it. "It's the thought that counts." The spider spins gently on its web. "So," the skeleton continues, sitting up suddenly and leaning forwards. You have a feeling you have just become irrelevant. "Creeper."

"Right." The enderman leans in too ,hanging its long arms from its pointy knees. "She's in the nearby settlement? The one bordering the desert?"

"Yeah, I got Zombie to help me follow the bugger that kidnapped her. Stupid thing managed to wake me up on its way out." Ugh, zombies again. You used to find them pretty cool, but you doubt you will ever have reason to like them again ever.

"Why didn't you just shoot it?" the spider asks.

"'Cause it was using her as a fucking shield is why." The skeleton buries its lack of a face in its metacarpals. "Knocked her unconscious or something, that's an achievement in itself with how thick her skull is, and held her up with a fucking diamond edge against her neck." A growl like the grating of sarcophagus lids resonates from the creature. "I couldn't do anything."

The enderman huffs and opens its huge jaw to object, but the spider gives it as meaningful a look as it can manage with a permanent grin and the black beast stops. "Fine," it says instead. "Did you see where it took her, or was that too difficult to manage too?"

"Fuck you," it hisses, then continues with its monotone back. "It had some mates on the surface, Zombie and me had to keep distance. Not all of us can teleport away from everything that's about to hurt us." You're getting really annoyed with how completely they're ignoring you. You _exist_.

"So we're gonna go in and get her!" chirrups the spider like that explains everything.

"Yes, because it's just that simple, Spider." The enderman rolls its eyes. "We need a plan."

"You're good at those!"

It makes a face. "Right. Anyway." It looks at the ceiling as though trying to conjure a mental map. "They might have her in the main square. No, there are three or four ridiculously excessive buildings they could be keeping her in. Why do they even _want_ her?" It looks back down, from the skeleton to the spider. Its gaze catches on you for a second, but all it does is narrow its eyes before looking away again. It leans back in its chair and flings its hands up. "Fuck, this is frustrating."

"They're insane, they probably just fucking felt like it," hisses the skeleton, still hunched. "It doesn't matter why, I just want her _back._"

"It matters why because if I don't know why they want her I don't know where she is," the enderman growls.

"Guys-" warns the spider.

"We have a talking fucking Minecrafter, why don't we get _it_ to find out where she is!" The skeleton sits up, glaring at the enderman as though daring him to object.

"Yeah, like that would-"

"Enderman, shut your dumb face," says the spider cheerily. "Skeleton said it before, when we found the thingy, and it could work! Like, think about it." It fiddles with its foremost legs, still dangling. The enderman glowers at it for a moment, then stares at the ceiling again as though Creeper will descend from the heavens if it looks long enough.

"Huh," it says finally, then looks at you. "Yeah. Yeah, that could work."

"D-d-d-d-d-don't I get a say in this?" you exclaim for the second time in a few hours, which is far too many times.

"No."

The spider giggles and the skeleton gives you a bony grin. You bite your lip, clutching the torch with white knuckles. Indignation bubbles in your gut, rising with a vengeance, with a fiery protest on your lips you'll use to stand up to this injustice and get your way once and for all!

With a sound that has _edges_ the thing is _right in front of you_, looming over you, laying huge steel fingers around your throat. Your shoulders tense and you look into its blazing eyes and you _say-_

Absolutely nothing.

"Ah good, an animal that knows how to follow orders," says the enderman with a humourless grin.

The reality of the situation stops slinking on the edge of sight and barrels into you yet again.

-{}-

You are now someone completely different.

_Watch the south_, they told you, because if they are not being cryptic pieces of shit there's probably something wrong with them. The south of _where? _Of France? Of the USA? South America? South Africa, maybe? _The South Pole?_ You're still not sure. At least you're not alone this time around, though. Your ex-husband has got over the insanity of the situation as much as any of you ever will, and you have the Kudrovs now. Thank god they've moved. They're far easier to contact now they're out of that city.

So, together, you have 'watched the south'. Lots of souths. Too many souths and still not enough eyes. Or enough ears, for that matter. Nothing left once they were gone.

Can't let yourself dwell on that. Too much to dwell on, not enough time. One of the souths you've been watching is a little country at the bottom of the world where they filmed _The Lord of the Rings _and things according to Benoît-Luc. New Zealand. It's about as south as you can get without being in Antarctica. Recordings of its news on the Internet, mostly, and a few news websites - _The New Zealand Herald, .nz, 3 News -_ to break it up, however reliable they may or may not be.

You're watching one right now, in fact. Not much happens in this country, or maybe they're just good at covering it up. The missing persons reports always catch your eye, and this one's a thirteen-year-old girl.

"_Sima Mauheni vanished from her Mount Roskill home last week," _says the reporter in English dusted with the country's funny accent, "_apparently through a locked window and a door that, in the words of her father Tane Mauheni, 'always creaks'. Police are baffled by the lack of fingerprints or evidence of any sort, save for the pile of grey dust on the bed she was taking a nap on." _Oh. The woman babbles on, unfamiliar language trailing out of comprehension, while you stare at the screen. Abruptly you pause the video and rock back in your chair, craning your neck around the corner. "Benoît-Luc, are you hearing this?" you demand in French.

A door opens down the hall and the light of his bedroom spills into the evening darkness, a pop-y beat skipping into your ears. "Did you call, _Mère_?"

"_Oui! _Turn your music off and come here!" After a moment silence snuffs it out and shuffling footsteps bring the slouching form of your son into the doorway. Light from the lounge plays with his brown curls and inquisitive eyebrows.

"_Ouais?" _he inquires.

"Look." You turn the computer screen so he can see and he bends over to watch as you play the video again.

"_...save for the pile of grey dust on the bed she was taking a nap on." _Benoît-Luc's eyes widen. You let the rest of it play through; an interview with the girl's mother, who seems to have lost too many kilograms in too short a time, tells you nothing new. One it fades to black you glance up at your son. "What do you think?"

He doesn't reply for a moment, still staring at the screen. His blue eyes flick to your face. "Guess it could be. With the dust and everything." He straightens up. "_Je ne sais pas_. What do _you _think, _Mère?" _

You turn the screen back towards you. "How about we tell your _père. _We can get him to watch the websites, wait for the report that they can't figure out what the dust is. If it comes, _bien sûr_," you add, reigning in your optimism. You have to be careful. Can't get too excited only for it to turn out to be nothing.

"_Bien." _He smiles at you. "Do you think it's another one, _Mère?"_

"Ah!" You fling your hands in the air. "_Je ne sais pas, _silly boy, let's not get ahead of ourselves! Go listen to your music." You flap a hand at him dismissively, turning back to the computer. With a roll of his eyes he turns leisurely and ambles back to his room. Behind him the door shuts. _Click._

Now to see if anyone's online.

**A/N: Gee, I wonder where these two live**

**Samoa**

**Definitely Samoa**


	6. Cultural Differences

**A/N: Woo! Player 3e! **

**Lack of sleep and new webcomics have prevented me from getting much writing done this week, so I'm only halfway through Chapter 11. This is pretty much entirely my fault. Also I have a mostly-unwritten speech due Monday and I'm proofreading this instead. Hee hee hee I'm doomed.**

The next couple of hours are kind of completely and utterly horrible. You wallow in self-hatred more or less back the way you came, progressively more irritated with all the block-jumping. At least you're getting better at navigating the things without landing on your arse. Through exchanges you grudgingly take part in, it's decided you'll just keep your distance from other monsters. If anyone asks, you're a newly-risen zombie. "Dirtpusher," corrects the skeleton, and then grins at you. "You've sure got the 'dirt' bit down."

Fucking skeleton.

You try to avoid talking to them as much as possible so you have more time to enjoy your misery, but it's too easy to eavesdrop. It's also confusing. As far as you can tell, the enderman and the skeleton hate each other, the enderman and the spider have some kind of weird hatefriendship, and the skeleton and the spider get on okay. The first time someone uses a female pronoun and you realise it refers to the skeleton is weird as hell.

"You're a _girl?"_ you exclaim. The skeleton just looks at you.

"_Duh,"_ it (she?) says, and then offers no further explanation. You can't work up the courage to ask.

For the most part they pretend you don't exist, which is arguably worse than threatening you. You make no pretenses about being the better person and use this as added fuel for the misery pyre. It just keeps on growing. You are left to your thoughts, most of which consist of how pathetic you are. You know it's stupid to be beating yourself up about this, but you do it anyway because you are an angsty thirteen-year-old.

Ever-growing angstfires incinerate any curiosity about whatever you're heading into until you realise you've left the mobs behind. Upon looking up in surprise you find a constellation of torchlights clusters on the plains ahead. A high wall surrounds it. Once you whip around and spot the mobs again you scuttle back to them, OUCH that's something thorny. For the umpteenth time you wish you had shoes.

"-walk it the rest of the way," the enderman is saying. The skeleton gives the impression of making a face without actually having a face to make.

"How do I know you're not just going to leave it outside and try some shitty heroics or something?" it demands.

The spider interrupts before the enderman can open its mouth. "Because he's dumb and paranoid, duh! He wouldn't go in there himself until he checked that it was safe like a gazillion times!"

"Don't interrupt me," the enderman grumbles. The skeleton stares at it for a second.

"You know I don't trust you in the slightest."

"Are you talking to me or everyone you've ever met?"

"Well shit, you just went and broke my heart right there. Except that's pretty much you in a nutshell."

"Guuuuys," whines the spider, pushing between them and looking from one to the other. "You're both really dumb. We should just go find a cave and Enderman can take the thingy to the thing and then everything works!"

You consider walking into the village anyway because fuck these things. You really need to see people who can tell you what's going on and also don't want to murder you. The skeleton and enderman appear to be having a kind of staring contest now, which could give you a good chance to get away. Then you remember the enderman can apparently teleport and all thoughts of that go flying. The last thing you want is that _thing _chasing after you. You pick at a loose maroon thread on the hem of your shirt and decide to wait instead, mentally beating yourself up yet again.

It seems the enderman wins the staring contest, because the skeleton throws up its hands and turns away. "Fuck, fine, you stubborn piece of shit. Go get shot by the sentries and dissolve already." It strides away, calling over its shoulder, "C'mon, Spider, leave the douche. I saw a cave back there." The spider screeches an affirmative after it, waits until it's out of earshot and nuzzles the enderman's legs. Recoiling, the enderman warbles.

"Go away already, Spider. I'll drop the _eyusait _off and be back soon."

"Don't actually die, 'kay?" orders the arachnid, grinning slickly up at its friend. "I don't want to have to tell everyone you went and got yourself offed by a bunch of guards!"

"It's not like anyone except you will care," it mutters, and then yelps as the spider hooks a leg around it and topples it over. The effect pretty accurately resembles a redwood being felled. Once the enderman's in range the spider flips it over in the same way it did you, shoving its face into that of the great black beast.

"Lots of people care!" it shrieks, long legs pinning its friend to the ground. "Don't be such an insecure shithead!" Insightful advice given, it steps off and scuttles after the skeleton with a goodbye hurled over its shoulders. The enderman flails for a moment to sit up.

You stare blankly, mouth slightly open in bewilderment. They are _so weird_.

The thing's head snaps around from where it was staring after the spider and its glare blazes at you again. "What are _you _looking at?"

"I have n-n-n-n-no idea," you say truthfully. It growls, and again with that edged _zzt _it's standing _right beside you bloody hell_. A head-sized hand swings around to grab you by the ponytail and drag you. Fortunately it gives that up after you spend a couple of minutes screaming. Rubbing the back of your head and muttering under your breath, you totter after its liquid strides. It can take the blocks in a single step and that is pissing you off to no end. You still haven't got the hang of the stupid jumping thing.

You try talking to it and get a "You will not talk to me" for your troubles. The other two are right, this creature is a lot of things and most of them fall under 'douche'.

You walk in silence with the horrible thing for a couple of minutes, the lights of the village growing steadily closer. It has been an incredibly long night and God are you tired. You can see now the wood of the walls, five blocks in height and hung with blazing torches every few blocks. They're bare of decoration, not even cool crenulations or anything, and don't seem to be made for walking across. Few buildings poke their heads above them. You don't notice the lines of farms marching off in either direction because you're still moping and not that observant anyway. What you _do _notice is there's no road to the time-blackened gates, which would strike you as strange if you weren't still beating yourself to a messy mental pulp. Either side of the gates rises a tower built into the wall, masked by some kind of wooden lattice and lit from within by a hanging lantern. Presumably there are guards inside, but you can't see them from here.

The enderman stops so suddenly you smack into it and almost topple it again. It shoves you away with fingers like iron bars, then seems to rethink that, grabs you by the front of your shirt and _hefts you into the air ow fuck_. You have a lot of ideas of a comfortable experience and none of them involve your shirt trying to cut off your arms at the armpits. At least it's not trying to throttle you this time. The beast raises you to its face and narrows supernova eyes at you, baring fangs that should be too big to fit in its mouth. Its violet sparks swarm around you like luminous wasps.

"I can't abide traitors, _eyusait_," it growls. "I have been sold out far too many times to tolerate it again, especially from something like _you_. You will enter the settlement. You will behave completely normally. You will acquire the information we need, see to it that Creeper is safe and return to us by dusk. If you do not, I will drag you out of there myself and I can assure you I will make you wish you could die. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

Holy fuck this thing terrifies you. "Y-y-y-yes," you manage to choke out.

Its lip curls. "The levels of pathetic you are capable of sinking to will never cease to amaze." With that knife-edged sound raking along your inner ears it vanishes, leaving you to fall on your tailbone ow fuck. You collapse onto the trodden grass. You are far too tired to deal with being treated like that and you want to cry again. Lying here and not talking to anyone ever again is sounding pretty good right now, except you're cold and damp and muddy and okay you're getting up. After flopping for a moment since moving takes more effort than you are willing to expend you manage to get to your feet. With a sigh that could topple buildings, you shove your hands into your jean-short pockets and pick your way towards the gates.

The part of your brain not organising a mental fighting ring with you as all participants is contemplating the age you might be in. There's not even a proper path up to the gates, just a strip of somewhat flattened grass meandering its way up the blocky rise. Considering the swords and things Katie had you making when she was showing you the game, this could be some kind of Medieval Period. That's a little worrying. If you're in this place's Middle Ages, this is _not _a good time to be a woman, let alone a thirteen-year-old girl. And if the people are white like pretty much everyone in video games, being a thirteen-year old girl with brown skin could be really, really bad. Now you've got yourself worked into a panic and _you're going to cry _oh God you're almost there. You gnaw on one of your bangs, anxiety juggling your organs, and cast a glance over one shoulder for any sign of purple misty crap. There's nothing except a lot of grass and a lot of darkness.

_You're really scared and you want to go home now please._

"_Gemer?"_ calls a man's voice. You jump six feet in the air.

"_Gemer fayjai?" _he bellows again. The odd syllables and thickly rolled R loiter in your ears, leaning against walls and leering at anything that walks past. You're close enough to be almost within the circle of firelight and can see the towers are indeed occupied. The man in the left-hand one has opened a pair of shutters in the wooden mesh and is sticking his leather-capped head out.

"_Fayjai'n!"_ you shout. The greeting decides it doesn't care what you think and it's going to be said whether you like it or not. There's a thick buzzing in your ears like they're full of cotton-muffled bees. "_Mahn Sima nayus! Za vgai nayus!"_ Okay, you just said 'my name's Sima, I'm lost' in a language you don't know. This is weird as hell. Why didn't this happen with the monsters?

"_Sima, ki!"_ calls the other one. 'Come here'. That's probably a good idea. You step into the light and-

_oh-_

The buzzing vanishes with that feeling of enlightenment brought on by unblocking sinuses. Or, in this case, unblocking ears. Torchlight draws odd shadows on your features, and those of the guards in the towers seem much clearer. You only moved a _step_. You glance over your shoulder to make sure and, yeah, the torchlight's borders are further than ten blocks away. Okay.

"Lost, eh?" repeats the guard in the right-hand tower. He scratches the beard that spills through the gap between his leather cap's nose guard and the chainmail draped over his neck. "You a nomad, lose your caravan?"

And suddenly there was English, or at least English laid on top of the weird language. Fortunately it comes with the perfect opportunity for a lie. "Yeah, I gggg-" fuck what's a better word they're looking at you funny "-suppose I just n-n-n-n, need a place to stay until I can go look for th-th-th-th-th-th-th- carathing. Could I come in? Please?" Endless lessons on manners from your mother regularly come back to haunt you. The dreaded incantation '_What _do we say?' is etched forever on the insides of your ears.

"Gods yeah," says the one in the right tower, adjusting the metal vambraces on the ends of his dusty yellow sleeves. "Far too young to be out here by yourself. You're, what, nine?"

"_Nine?"_ sometimes people mistake you for eleven or twelve, sure, but nine is a little extreme. "No, I'm thirteen," you protest. The difference is extremely important.

"Thirteen? No way," says the left-hand guard. "You look far too young to be thirteen."

"Or maybe you're just getting old like me, Darryl," the bearded one sniggers. "Pull the leaver already, s'bad manners to keep people waiting."

"Right." There's bustling and clunking from the two towers. Torchlight catches on the guards' iron tassets and dances across the leather breeches underneath. "Here it is, y'ready?"

"Yep."

_Clunk._

_Shoopshoopshoopshoopsh_thuk.

"Bloody hell!" exclaims the bearded one, employing the age-old tactic of kicking it to make himself feel better. "Useless fuckin' redstone, breaks more than it works. Y'know it's been acting up even more over the past couple of days? Need a half-good technician around here for once."

"We've had technicians around here?" asks the one evidently called Darryl, bewildered.

"Before your time, sonny."

"You're not _that _old."

"Can you _please _let me in?" you beg, not in the mood for this. Darryl closes his shutters again and crouches to open a trapdoor in the back of his tower room thing.

"Yeah, we can open it manually. I think. We can open it manually, can't we, Nanosa?"

Well that's a weird name. "Yeah, wouldn't be able to open the bloody thing at all if we couldn't." He turns and walks the step or two to his own trapdoor. The towers don't seem to be very big. You sway on your feet as their heavy boots clunk down the ladders onto the street inside. Heavy accents batter against the block-thick wood of the door in vain. Finally, with the practised groan of something that has a lot of experience not moving and would not like to change this, the gates swing open. The silence of the sleeping street within washes out and eddies around your ankles. It's almost tangible, which only helps to prove you need sleep. You wade through it and the guards heave the gate shut behind you. The village beyond isn't nearly as impressive as you were hoping; the cobbles look like someone ran out of stone halfway through and had to dig up some to spread them out more. It's all brightly lit, though, by flaming streetlights at irregular intervals.

You rub your face and turn to the guards; the old guy, Nanosa or whatever, is almost dwarfed by Darryl. "Is there, like, an inn or something I can stay in? Except I don't have any money," you realise. That's going to make things harder. The two guards share a glance from under their helmets.

"My husband's on trip since yesterday," says Darryl, "so our house is free 'til I get back from watch."

It takes you a moment to process this. "Wwwwwait, husband?" you ask, unsure if you misheard.

"Yep," he says cheerily, looking back to you with a grin and his hands on his hips. "bBeen married two months now." Well that was unexpected.

"So you got around Leader after all her pissiness?" Nanosa asks. "Traditionalist old bitch, holdin' to Rokyal's values."

"Yeah, see, Lansos wanted to marry her girlfriend," Darryl explains, gesticulating. "So since it's not like anyone other than Leader cares we just got Priest to put them down as our wives. Leader won't know what hit her for years!"

"You crafty little sods," cackles the old man, slapping a leather-encased knee. You have to admit that's pretty clever.

"So I can just sleep at your house for a couple of hours or something?" you ask, tugging on your ponytail. It would occur to most sensible people to be concerned about sleeping at a strange man's house. You are not, however, most people, or in fact sensible. He seems like a nice guy and you're tired. This is the limit of your logic at the moment.

"Yeah, I'll probably wake you up when watch is over. That okay?"

"Yeah, sure, I have ssssssss-" fucking hell you cannot _win _today "things." You realise you're pointing a victorious finger and hide it behind your back. "To do, I mean. In the morning."

The guards look at you strangely. "Alrighty then," proclaims the old guy, "now you're all sorted, I'll head back up. Gonna walk 'er to your house, Darryl?" Darryl looks at you questioningly and you conclude that yeah, there's no way you can take directions right now. Once you farewell Nanosa, the younger guard leads you between the houses' slightly drunken wood walls. His boots' cacophonies struggle through the clinging silence, while you pad catlike through it. The cobbles are rough beneath your bare soles. All the torch poles do is cast more interesting shadows; most of the houses are single-storey, wooden rather than wattle and daub. The planks look almost exactly like the ones you and your friends used to build that mansion in the game, only less shitty. All the blocks are still weird as hell; even the roofs aren't sloped properly, more like the sides of step pyramids.

You're only half-noticing most of this because you're horribly tired. Darryl leads you along a few turns; you are _so _over jumping up metre-ish-high blocks so you're glad they're flat. Finally the guard marches up the stone steps in front of a house to shove its door open. No locks, you notice. Torchlight from the street tiptoes around Darryl's broad frame and pokes at the shadows inside as he holds the door open for you. Five blocks square of room within is coated in darkness.

"Bedroom's through there." Darryl points a gloved finger at a patch of blackness just like every other in the room, and then squints. "I think. Only got three rooms, I'm sure you'll find your way around alright. There're torches somewhere. Steal anything and I'll skin y', alright?" You pout up at him, utterly sick of death threats, only to find him grinning. Okay, you guess you can forgive him.

"'Kay," you mumble, exhausted. He pats you on the head and you bristle a little. Minus ten cool points from this guy.

"You'll be alright?" he asks. You grudgingly allow him an affirmation. "Great, gotta get back to the watch. Here's a tip for y': never be a guard. It's boring as fuck- I mean heck, and when something finally happens you just get nine-year-olds sleeping in your house."

"_Thirteen_," you correct him, but he just laughs and vanishes from the doorway. Emboldened by the receding _clomp, clomp, clomp _of his boots, torchlight creeps a little further into the room. Oh hey, there's a couple of wooden chests and tables along the left wall, covered in junk. You make your way across the rush-strewn floor – there we go, something properly Medieval – and grope around the nearest table in search of a torch. A number of sharp objects see fit to introduce themselves first. Finally you hand closes on a wooden handle and you strike it along the wall, barely avoiding dropping it yet again as it sputters to life. It throws the Spartan room into golden relief. That's _still _not how torches work but okay.

You don't really feel like taking the place in right now, so you crunch over the rushes and fight with a door at the back of the room until it opens. Lo and behold, it's the wrong bloody room. The other one is in fact the bedroom. After shoving the torch into a holder on the bedside table you collapse onto the undyed woolen blanket. On second thought, you crawl underneath it. It's hard and itchy and cold and you don't care because you're already asleep.

-{}-

You are jolted awake by a slam. When faced with wooden planks rather than the glow-in-the-dark spiders on your ceiling you spend a frantic few seconds figuring out where you are. You run into the truth a couple of times, but try to find another explanation because there is _no _way it's true. Any possible explanation. At all. Please let there be another explanation.

All hopes of this are dashed when the guard wrenches the door open. He stares at you groggily for a moment before grunting in recognition and making his way to the other corner of the small room. Stripping off his gloves, he chucks them at the waist-high chest there without bothering to open it. "You. Out," he orders. "Sleep time's up and I'm in a bad mood."

"Sorry," you say, intimidated. This is nothing new because it is not very hard to intimidate you. It's beginning to occur to you that normal people don't let strangers sleep in their houses, and in fact normal people don't sleep in _strangers' _houses. You slip out of the bed and tiptoe towards the door as he extracts his leather cap from a nuclear explosion of black helmet hair. Maybe you should ask about it. "Um, why did you help me?"

A face the colour of smouldering wood squints at you over his shoulder. Well that's a relief. "People got no manners where you come from or something? It's just, like -" he flails with the effort of early morning explanation - "a thing you do. Like, Minecrafters don't help each other, soon enough we'll all be mob food, right?"

"Oh," you say, one hand on the door frame. "Um, thank you."

He grunts again and returns to escaping his armour. "No problem. Now go away, I need sleep."

You smile because he's the funny sort of grumpy and close the door behind you as you step into the main room. Sunlight streams in through one-block windows, sinking into corners torchlight couldn't touch last night. Proper glass windows! You wonder how well-off these guys are to afford glass in a time like this, or if glass is even all that expensive in the world of a video game. You have no idea what you're dealing with and you're still horribly tired. However long you slept wasn't long enough.

The room looks even sparser in daylight, heavy with the air of two people who don't spend much time at home. Snooping around the house of the guy who helped you seems ungrateful, though, so you open the front door and step into the oh God it's freezing. Now _that _woke you up. The air tastes cold and crystallises in your throat, settling on the weeds that lay claim to the dirt between the cobbles. It's probably around six degrees or something. You consider this cold because Auckland is a wussy temperate city. You are dressed for _summer_, goddamnit. Tentatively you make your way onto the cobbles and fuck that's cold. You wonder if asking the guy for shoes would be pushing it. Asking the guy for shoes would be pushing it.

Right, what do you need to do today? Find the creeper thingy, firstly. Oh, right, you've got to do the thing. The thing. It's early and thinking is hard. Find out why you're here, that's right.

You begin to wander, rubbing your shoulders more to make yourself feel better than actually warm up. The torches have all gone out, but the weird bushes planted alongside some of the houses are verdant with winter damp in daylight. Strangely enough, it doesn't smell like someone threw up on a sewer and left it to rot, and no-one's chucking the contents of chamber pots out windows. Maybe the place operates on video game logic and people don't poop or something? That's weird but kind of convenient. You really don't want to use a privy.

A couple of groups of younger people drift along the streets. The adults who come marching past are more anchored to the ground, lines graven in their faces by years of jobs nobody wants to do. They're all kind of intimidating and you spend a lot of time switching sides of the street. Strangely enough most clothes are rimmed with reds, yellows and greens, with the women dressed almost the same as the men. Most faces are on the darker side of white. Not so much savannah-scorched as temperate-forest-toasted, like Maori or Islanders. Mm, toast. You're hungry and you just went off on a tangent oops. Few of them care enough to notice you, but the occasional pair of eyes bores into you as you pass. It's probably how different your clothes are. You shrink in self-consciousness.

Most people are heading in the same direction, and snippets of conversation roll blithely past and catch on your ears. Things like "Total prick" and "Has a point", "Too risky" and "Fuck yes" are thrown from person to person like piles of hay, but no-one seems to be able to agree on whatever they're talking about. You find yourself following them, if only because you have no idea where to go. Soon enough the houses part to reveal a market square that looks like it's seen more festivals than cleaners. Shops line its edges and waggle wordless signs suggestively from their upper storeys; in front of them, stalls jostle for space, awnings the kind of bright that will keep smiling so long as you give it money. A few thin trees that look like they don't want to be there slouch out of straggly excuses for gardens. There's no fountain, which is kind of disappointing, but so is the entire place.

Except for the crowd. A couple hundred people are crammed into a shifting brown smudge, elbowing each other and bellowing at the man on the raised dais in the centre. They don't seem to have quite got the hang of public speaking, considering it more like a conversation. The result is so many people talking over each other that you can't make out what _anyone _is saying. Indignant, the man paces and points and gesticulates like he's operating a machine with around a thousand buttons. His boots are thunderous on the platform's cobbles, the flaps of the dusty green coat over his chainmail flying. His long brown hair looks like it picked a fight with a hedge and lost and you can't take him seriously. Another group of teenagers shoves you out of the way as you hover at the edge of the square, craning for a better look. Then someone moves their head and wow, that's an iron cage taller than you are on the dais. And in it, managing to look disgusted with the world at large despite a gaping black frown, is a llama-shaped creature covered in light green fuzz. It holds its flat face regally on its long, mottled neck, slender legs ending in horsey hooves. Its gaze flicks around like it's trying and failing to look in every direction at once.

You realise it must be that creeper thing and are so, so relieved it doesn't look like a penis.

The yelling is about as pleasant as having your ears smashed in with a mace and you wish they'd shut up already. Hey, how about that! As though in answer to a prayer a sheepish silence pokes at the far reaches of the crowd. When met with success as hollering dissolves into whispers it stalks on, laying heavy hands on the heads of the mass. Some inexplicable parting follows in its wake. It's probably Minecraft Moses. Everyone is even taller than normal and it's hard to see what's going on.

"_Mobslayer."_ A woman's voice pours over the waning racket like syrup. The man on the dais freezes mid-gesture and turns slowly to face the source. "This is _quite _enough, you know." Black curls followed by a woman the shape of a brown balloon bob onto the platform out of the dividing human sea. The smile on her face could quite possibly saw through iron when concentrated.

"Oh, uh, Leader," begins the man evidently called Mobslayer desperately. At the same time someone interrupts with a "Hi, Mum!" from the crowd. The woman's horror movie smile drifts slowly towards the caller and oh God is she looking at you. No, it's the guy in front of you. Phew.

"_Desmond_," she says in a tone that manages to convey clear intents of slow and careful murder through sheer sickly-sweetness. "What are _you _doing here?"

"Uh," says he, reconsidering certain life choices while his companions snigger and elbow him.

"We will talk about this _later, _dear." The dread the poor guy is exuding would make you feel sorry for him if this wasn't hilarious. The woman spreads arms draped in dusty yellow and green to the crowd at large. "Two days of this is _quite _enough," she repeats. "I am sure we all have _jobs _to get back to, and I have had enough of the racket in this square. You may make your point tomorrow, Mobslayer, or not at all." She treats him to another murdersmile, and then at the expectant crowd. "Well? We will all be going now."

With a grumbling and jeering the rabble frays at the edges and soon people are flooding down the streets without a glance to spare for you. The woman and Mobslayer are still talking up on the platform, the latter bristling with barely-bridled hostility. A few stragglers chatter past you as you consider going up there to try talk to the whatsitsface. Creeper. Maybe it'll magically present a solution or something. Deciding it's worth a shot, you stroll around the edge of the square with such nonchalance that anyone who saw you would arrest you on the spot for being so obviously up to something. The woman gives up her onslaught and leaves him fuming with folded arms as she bobs down a street. His scowl snaps at the creeper, then to the woman's back; "I'll kill it tomorrow!" he yells after her. "Then they'll see!"

"Of _course_," she calls over her shoulder, and disappears behind the buildings. Good for the thing that it won't be here tomorrow, then. You wonder if you'll be able to come back here afterwards, or if that would be a good idea at all. How are you even going to get _home?_ You stroll past a shop front and throw in a whistle for good measure. Thing is you can't whistle and it sounds more like you're trying to blow hair out of your face. With a roar of rage hopefully unrelated to that the man turns and kicks the cage. Its occupant retaliates by shooting to its feet with a bristling back, hunched neck and a noise like an enraged revolver. The man growls something and stalks off, leaving the creature to stare after it, trembling. Well that was convenient as hell. Throwing a glance around the square to check it's empty, you hurry to the dais and hop up its steps. The thing looks up as you near it and narrows its bottomless eyes. You keep a couple of blocks between yourself and the cage.

"If you intend to do something obnoxious such as poking me, tiny _eyusait_," the creeper hisses, "I would like to inform you that my patience has reached negative values and I would be pleased to acquaint your insides with gunpowder."

Wow. "Um, that sounds nice and everything, but actually your ffffffff-" Jesus fucking Christ "um, things. The skeleton and enderman and spider? They sent me." You shift from foot to foot awkwardly.

Its eyes widen again and it holds its head up haughtily. "My oh _my_, you can hear me? Now that's peculiar indeed." Its voice is sandpaper and makes blood rush in your ears. Cocking its head, it forces one corner of its frowning mouth into an upward twitch. "I believe fate brings us together, _eyusait_."

Oh shit, it's a total nutter.

**A/N: Ah, first impressions. **

**So that's the second review I've got commenting that the second person isn't working well! Thanks for the honest opinion, CookieMonsuta, and also the blessing of the work of art that is your username. Is anyone finding it doesn't work for this? Also, how is it NOT working, and what 'kind of story' does it work for? It's not really something I'm willing to negotiate because I adore it and ten and a half chapters of it is way too many to retcon, but your opinions are important and of course this is an experiment. I need to find out what works and what doesn't!**

**By the way, thanks for reading. :D **


	7. And Sew Me a Quilt

"Fate?" you ask, bewildered. "Wwwwwhat do you mean?"

"Ah." Its voice sounds perfectly level while its face looks like it's just seen a truck full of puppies crash into an orphanage. It rocks back on its hooves and flicks its head. "Strange events are in motion, you see. Eldritch forces are at work in the world." Oh god it's like an NPC giving you some cheesy exposition spiel. No thank you.

"Yeah, okay," you say in a rare fit of being able to resist someone. You raise your hands in self-defence."That sounds rrrrrr- very interesting and e-e-e-e-e- stuff, but can it wait? I gotta, like, figure how to get you out of here so the black scary guy doesn't murder me."

The creature gives some weird rasping bark like someone hitting a drum with a sack made of sandpaper. Oh that's laughter. Why do these things all laugh so weirdly? "You mean Enderman? Yes, that's certainly the type of thing he'd say. He's awfully silly." No shit. "It's understandable, though."

"_What?"_ you exclaim. "_Understandable?_" You feel stupid for yelling and look around in case anyone saw you. Still no-one in the square. Thank god. You're also bad at yelling and that was likely what most people would consider normal speaking volume.

"Well, yes," it says, a little affronted. "Considering what you are."

Yeah, they're all fucking racist. Speciesist? Something. Okay. You throw up your hands and open your mouth to make a scathing comment so profound neither it nor its companions could ever look down on you again. "So, how am I supposed to get you out of here?" Fuck.

It thinks for a moment. You resume hopping from foot to foot because the stone is still prickling at your soles. "Well, you could compile information on the village's exits, I suppose," it suggests, kicking a front hoof absently. "I don't know much about the place, I'm afraid. I was rather, er." It looks sheepish. "Incapacitated. Unconscious, really. When they brought me in here." It blinks slowly. "And possibly still slightly concussed. Regardless," it bridles, raising its head again on its long neck, "things such as watch schedules could also be useful. No doubt Enderman will concoct some pointlessly convoluted scheme from even the barest information you could give him. Skeleton will be overjoyed if it involves killing," it adds cheerily. What is _with _these things and senseless violence? It's beginning to dawn on you that you have quite possibly ended up working for a group of the game's enemies and your luck is absolute shit.

You have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

"Right," you sigh when it seems the thing's not going to start talking again. "I guess I'll just, lllll-" you know things are bad when you stammer your _fucking particles of speech _"Shit. Go, then?"

"Of course. You have much to get done," it reasons, nodding. "Ah! You might also want to stop by the library. Your kind's libraries are always full of interesting things. There may be some records or tomes or somesuch that could assist you." Well that's neither NPC-ish nor suspicious in the slightest. "There's no rush, after all."

"Th-th-th-th-th-th-" new word uh fuck "Mobslayer said he was gonna kill you tomorrow," you point out.

It gets the look of someone who knows full well that they are wrong and would not admit it under torture. "No rush," it repeats airily. Tucking its hooves beneath it like a cat again, it settles and stares into the middle distance. You have a feeling you've just been dismissed yet again and, with another sigh, head off.

-{}-

Skeleton is pacing and it is annoying the everliving _fuck _out of you.

You as in Spider, that is, not you as in Sima. You don't even know anyone called Sima! It's a dumb name. Sounds too Minecrafter-y for your tastes. Who even gets named 'to turn'? Stupid dumb ugly _eyusaitver_, that's who!

Oh god make it stoooooop. Nothing annoys you more than repetitive noises like the clicking dirge of skeleton's feet on the stone. You're pretty sure she's going to wear a ditch in the floor of the cave if you don't FUCKING BREAK HER first!

You don't even get what she's so worried about! Soon you're gonna go get Creeper and rescue her and have an adventure and it'll be cool and that's pretty much all there is to it. And maybe you can eat the Minecrafter afterwards! You're not that hungry, actually. You ate like three cows yesternight, which is probably why you can't sleep. You do this thing sometimes where you forget to eat for a week or something and then gorge yourself! You can't really help it.

Craaaap she's still doing it. You grit your teeth, which is a complicated process taking several minutes and the rearrangement of mandibles almost too big to fit in your mouth. The fact that Enderman's snoring like a train horn doesn't help! You don't know what a train is and that simile means nothing to you. Your huge friend is sprawled on a nearby ledge that's barely big enough to hold him. His dust and your eyes are the only sources of light in the cave.

She's STILL PACING OH YOUR GOD. "Skele_toooon!"_ you whine. She stops, arm bones folded, and trains on you a glare with claws in it.

"What?"

"Stop paaaciiiiing-uhhh," you moan. The claws sink in further.

"Gimme the time."

You glance over at the dodgy little watch, stolen a few years ago, lying on the floor beside Enderman. "Almost midday I think! Or something."

She clacks and STARTS PACING AGAIN OH SWEET TORTURE. You groan, which sounds more like a cheese grater being dragged across glass.

You have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

_Click, click, click, click, tick, tack, click…_

-{}-

You are now Sima once more. This sort of thing ought to be made clear.

Despite yourself you took the green llama, you mean creeper's, advice and spent some time locating the library. It's not a terribly impressive building, but you've come to realise that neither is anything else in this place. It's no wider than any of the houses leaning on each other along this street, its step-pyramid roof a slightly steeper peak. Time has wrinkled the wood of its façade and worn its cobblestone base, reducing the no doubt elaborate carvings around its double doors to blobs. You have a feeling someone imagined the glass glare of a four-block window either side of the doors. They must have been disappointed to learn that there wasn't nearly enough room and what they ended up with look more like archer slits. A tower rears from the back of the building for some reason.

You spend a couple more minutes hovering on the wooden porch because you're bad at going into places you don't know. Finally you work up enough courage to hold a handle as though its frilly bits will bite you and, ever so slowly, inch the door opeHOLY SHIT THAT'S A LOUD CREAK. You contort into an ever-growing cringe as it screeches bloody murder, sliding open with the bitter resistance of someone being dragged into Hell. Pattering footsteps swing around the corner of a bookshelf inside and a woman who may have been a bumblebee in a past life rebounds off the wall with a hand on her little red hat. After flicking around frantically for a moment her blue dinnerplate eyes alight on you. By now you're suspended by your feet and the handle, stretched out over a couple of blocks. You realise this and push yourself back into a standing position. "Um. Hi."

"I thought someone was being _strangled!_" she cries, waving her hat. Her nigh-circular face is bright red with indignation. "What on the _Overworld _were you doing?" Wow, so the planet is called the Overworld? The word for the place in a video game that connects all its locations? That is quite probably the most stupidly unoriginal thing you've ever heard. Just, wow. Not even the fact that they're called Minecrafters can top that.

"Uh, opening the door, a-a-a-a-actually," you inform her. For clarification you point at the handle. Just in case. Placing her hat very carefully back on her head, she spends a moment staring at the door, then at you. You're still pointing at it. You try a sheepish grin.

"My dear, I think you need to learn about opening doors."

"It's an art I haven't yet mastered," you quip. Fuck yes, perfect delivery. She does not find this funny. Whoops.

"Can I _help _you?" she demands, folding yellow-and-black striped arms across her spherical stomach. You're sure she's secretly a bumblebee. Who told her that yellow and black stripes suit her, or for that matter anyone?

"I, uh, maybe?" You realise you're still pointing and drop your arm, only to raise it again to tug on your bangs. "I'm looking for… stuff." That is a look with knives in it. "I mean, like…" You gesture vaguely. What _are_ you looking for? Any and all information that could help monsters break into your village and get out again unnoticed, thank you. Oh yes, could you also spare anything to do with people from the real world getting sucked into your shitty video game land of murderdeath and sorrow? Thanks.

"Do you have anything on mythology?" you ask. That works better. "And some recent records?"

She narrows her eyes at you. You have a feeling most of the things going through her black-fuzzed head right now have to do with nasty teenage delinquents and their suspicious ways. "Well, yes," she admits, grudgingly.

After a moment it becomes clear she's not going to say anything more until you ask. "Can I see them? Please?"

She huffs, rotates and buzzes off into the forest of shelves. She's shaped so it's more rotating than turning. You tag along, craning to look up at shelves which could only be called 'towering' by a stretch. This place is so disappointing. They're a little less than a block apart, so they crowd you and leer down at you with the formidable power of _knowledge_. So spooky. Eventually the woman stops and gestures to a shelf; the books on it are dark reds, stony greys and plain brown. The weird letters on their year-ravaged spines twist under your gaze as though reluctant to be read. "_Mythology_," says the woman in a tone most would use for 'cockroach vomit'. "Find whatever you need, _dear_, and I'll show you the records." She manages to make 'dear' sound like a threat.

"Thank you!" When it becomes clear she isn't going to leave however awkwardly you stand you crouch and run a finger over the tomes. Whatever angled script they're written in, you can't read a word of it. This is an unexpected problem. You grab three at random so you look at least somewhat like you know what you're doing and, cradling them, stand. She is dubiously scrutinising your choices oh god you want to put them back now. Thankfully she turns her Stern Teacherly Disapproval™ away and buzzes off again, leaving you to totter after her.

She leads you down an aisle between rows of shelves, which isn't nearly as endless and mysterious as it should be. It opens onto a space at the back of the building with an issues desk that looks more like a cave set into the wall. With an order to put the books on the desk the woman bumbles over to the wooden door next to it and pulls a set of keys out of a pocket. "_Carefully_," she warns without turning around, making you freeze mid-put. You lean over and stick your leg out in an exaggerated mime of a throw before laying the books gently on the desk. You know how to deal with old books, lady. God.

After a minute's wrestling with the stubborn lock – none on houses, but one on a records room? – the woman heaves the door open and floats inside. You follow her into as circular a room as you can get when everything's a rectangular prism; holes like honeycomb pepper the darker wood, each filled with a scroll. Books _and _scrolls? Weird. Now _this _room stretches impressively into a chasm of a ceiling, ladders crawling up the walls to ring-shaped wooden platforms every three blocks. This must be the tower you saw outside.

"The most recent are down the bottom, of course," says the woman. Plenty of the honeycomb holes down here are empty. You get her to point out the most recent, and once it's under your arm she escorts you back into the library proper. Locking the door behind her, she lifts the trapdoor in the front of the issues desk and buzzes into the cave. You look around awkwardly while she bustles about, but finally she slaps a book onto the desk. A bottle of ink and white quill pen stripped of barbs sit on it. Ooh, quills. Squinting at the books' mysterious titles and what looks like a serial number on the scroll, she scribbles in a table in the issues book. It's still the weird angled script and you can't read a word of it.

Her huge eyes look up to stare at you. Quite possibly into your soul, in fact. "And what exactly may I put down for your name, dear?"

Oh shit what if your name is too exotic or something. It's weird enough back home, but you have no idea how names even work here. Best to give it a shot, though, and stick with the lie you've already got. Maybe nomads usually have weird names. "Sima. I'm a nnnnnomad," you tell her, mostly confident.

"Ah," she says like that explains a lot, quill squeaking over the paper. "I wasn't aware a caravan had stopped by."

"Th-th-th-th-th-they're, like, kind of far away," you lie, surreptitiously sliding the books towards you. She looks up and narrows her eyes again, reaching up to tweak her hat. You have no idea what's with the hat.

"Be sure to get them back here before you leave," she warns, wagging a pale finger of warning at you. "And if they're in anything less than _mint _condition I'll have your guts for garters."

"Okay," you say with what you hope is a winning smile. "Th-th-th-th-th-thank you." She replies with something vague and you take your leave with the books under your arm. You have to do a couple of double-takes before you manage to find the door again. Now to find someplace to read these things, and also figure out how to read a language that probably doesn't exist in the real world.

Goddamnit.

-{}-

A dead woman sits cross-legged on a coffee table, staring into the black depths of her television as though it could show her the future, or perhaps even the rugby. What a convenient distraction from Sima being boring and looking at books. You, the esteemed reader, would almost think a tangent as clever as this could be designed to occur at this exact time.

Of course intelligent design is a stupid theory and you should feel stupid for even considering it.

You are now the dead woman, and you are deep in thought. This is a bit of an achievement seeing as you are still half-asleep. It's not like you ever get a break, though, and you have a lot to think about. Namely how this clusterfuck of a task is going to get sorted out. Soon you'll have to start _talking _to people, and being _relatively cordial_, and then there's the kid and its friends. You've got to introduce yourself at some point. Ugh.

A knock on the door makes you fling your hands in the air and almost fall off the table. Holy shit you hope no-one saw that. You spend a minute staring blankly sideways at the door before thinking to yell, "Whaddya want?"

"They're starting to quilt," calls a voice that isn't actually too horrible. "I thought you'd like to know."

Quilt. Quilt. What's so important about _oh_. You swing your legs over the side of the table and pad over to the door. "Are you decent?"

You can practically hear the speaker rolling its eyes. "You're _still _doing the whole-"

"Yeah," you interrupt, "I am. Are you decent or not?"

There is a pause. A breeze whistles beyond the door.

"Yes, yes, now I am. May I come in?"

"Fine." Your reflexes are too slow for you to avoid getting conked in the face with the doorknob when your visitor suddenly opens it.

"Whoops! Sorry!" The door shuts with its usual knife-edge _click _while you nurse your throbbing nose. "I wasn't expecting this to turn into slapstick!"

"What?" you say groggily as someone brushes away your hands and taps you on the nose. _OW _wait that feels better now. When you open your eyes you get a facefull of grey. That explains a lot. A teenage girl smiles at you from the midst of a straight black bob cut, taking a step back. This one's pretty okay, if you remember correctly. Haven't heard from her in a while.

"Don't mind me, I've just been talking to Spes too much. You know what it's like."

"Sort of. Spend too much time asleep to keep track." You rub the bridge of your nose as she gives a little laugh.

"It's the one that's always going on about narration and things. Remember?"

"Oh gods, _that _one. Why would you want to talk to _that _one?"

"Not all of us are intolerant to humour." She cocks her head and grins at you. You snort.

"Right. Now, how am I getting to wherever you idiots are setting up this time?"

"Ah, of course." Adjusting her dark grey blouse, the teenager gestures towards the door. "Just by opening the door, actually. Kaity decided we're taking no risks with you walking around this time, so we got some help."

_Ring-a-ding-ding_, that's the glorious sound of your patented _what-the-fuck _alarm bells going off. "Help? What do you mean, _help?"_

She sighs. "It warned me you'd say that. Look, it's nothing, at least, it's nothing dangerous. And nothing that wants something out of it. Not everything is out to sabotage us."

"Yeah, but plenty of things _are_," you growl. "It's not one of the Kaizua pieces of shit, is it? Don't they do that kind of thing?" The girl casts a gaze to the ceiling before training thin black eyes back on you.

"Yes, yes, it's one of the Kaizua. Not the sharp ones, the other ones. I don't know what to tell you, Pendy," she resigns as you scowl and open your mouth. "Look, I know you can't trust them, but can't you at least trust _me?_"

You cackle.

She rolls her eyes. "Okay, let me try again. Do you want all your supporters to hijack the rest of this or are you willing to step outside?"

You glare at the door as though it insulted your mother and then at the teenager's proffered ochre-skinned arm. Fuck all the things these idiots force you to do. "I don't need your kind's help and I'm not doing the army linky bullshit. Just open the door."

She frowns at you, but doesn't say anything and reaches for the doorknob.

She turns it and beyond is a-

_hall-_

You step into a room not much larger than your own, the teenager close on your heels. The first breath you take is full of mist and noise; the rattling of three enormous looms sets your teeth on edge as much as the click of the door closing behind you. Smiling at you, the girl steps into the clinging damp and becomes as much a grey blur as the others in the room. Another few are blue, and you can make out some furniture shoved against the walls. If you remember correctly, when you reach out- yep, that's a thread strung between the walls. Squinting into the mist, you make out the blurry streaks of other threads crisscrossing the room. Hey, your memory isn't completely shot. You duck under it and so begins a clumsy dance through all the ones beyond it since you are still half-asleep and excellent at smacking into things. Apparitions in blue and grey drift past with calls of "Hey, look who's up" and "Welcome, welcome". Finally a grey-gloved hand grabs yours and you grudgingly allow it to walk you through the rest of the maze.

In the centre of the room is a clearing, populated with figures of various ages all dressed in, what a surprise, godsdamn grey and blue. The fact that you know exactly why they're all wearing that doesn't make it any better. The blonde boy who woke you up is talking with a middle-aged man and lanky young adult, both of them as blue as he. You stand at the edge of the circle, wary, until a child with goggles on his head notices you and flaps his grey jumper's baggy sleeves in glee. "Hey! Hello! Come in!"

The others look up at the sound of his voice and, as still others drift out of the mist, greet you and each other with varying degrees of animosity. Ugh. _People._ A huge woman whose cerulean dress is coated in floral patterns trots over to you and bobs a curtsey, flashing a painted smile from behind a reef of blonde curls. You allow her a nod and fold your arms. You've got an image to keep up.

"We've been waiting, we have, of course!" she says with a voice as full and wobbly as her practically gelatinous body. "We wouldn't start without you, no!"

"'Cept for how we did," sniggers the lanky man, adjusting the diamond-encrusted frames of his glasses. "Shoulda got up earlier!" The woman shoots him an ear-to-ear smile that thinly veils intent to murder.

"I'm afraid we had to rush a little," says the teenage girl who got you to come here in the first place from next to the middle-aged man. "Things got somewhat out of hand." The man nods sagely. You groan and pinch the bridge of your nose.

"Yeah, because it's not like that doesn't always happen," you snarl. "Show me the shit you've dredged up, then." Under your expectant glare the huge woman turns and calls out; a couple of the others vanish into the mists and return trailing varicoloured threads.

"Violet dyed with night," says the same woman who woke you up, handing you a thread with a flourish before strutting off.

"Calcareous bone white," the teenager informs you, weaving another through your fingers as she passes.

"Winter's verdant green," chirps the tiny boy, planting a third in your palm and scuttling away.

"Crimson's bloody sheen," a man murmurs, handing you a fourth, "and maroon, yet incomplete." He takes it between grey-gloved fingers and ties it with the rest before stepping off. Ignoring the expectant rabble surrounding you, or at least pretending to, you stare down the little bundle and pass it from hand to hand. You spend a moment in thought.

"These colours look horrible together."

"That's what _I _thought!" exclaims the middle-aged man, nudging with a grin the tall woman in a short turquoise skirt and blazer next to him. She allows him a snort.

The huge woman in the dress purses her lips. "I believe we need a sixth, mm, I do. Only a sixth, yes." She looks at you pointedly. You scowl at her, cupping the threads in your hands. You're not hunching over them. That would be a stupid thing to suggest.

"Well?" asks the blonde boy with raised eyebrows.

"What's with the mist?" You definitely don't make sure the threads are safely in your other hand before you point to the ceiling.

"That would be the Badala," says the tall woman, dangling diamond earrings swinging as she flicks a gaze into the mist around her. "It decided to help out rather than be properly present. It's far easier to work like this than how we normally are, however." She gestures with her blue-streaked ballpoint pen, her other hand on her hip.

"Right." You look down at the threads again.

"Well?" demands the lanky man exasperatedly. You growl, knife him with a proper scowl and reach behind you into the mist.

This time you're not dodging the web, but feeling for vibrations down the rainbow threads. You run your hands along them and cock your head as they sing in tones only you can hear. This one a high note, this a deep bass, that a jittery trill, that a melody. They're rarely _pleasant _sounds and it's not music you'd dance to; it's an odder chorus, more discordance than accord, a clash and clatter and crack and chatter. A swarm, a flock, a pack, a scale of sound. To you it's a breath of fresh air, a buzz in your veins, a-

_breath-_

There we go.

You tug it from its fastenings and tuck one end into the bundle cradled in your fingers. Its length trails after you as you stagger back through the maze. Finally you're in the clear space again, the others whirling around to face you. They're alight with expectation. What was the rhyme again? Certain things are expected of you.

"Violet dyed with night," you say, casting the purple thread into the air, where it hangs.

"Calcareous bone white." Up goes the pale one.

"Winter's verdant green." Three threads in the mist.

"Crimson's bloody sheen." Up with the red.

"Maroon of age and wear," you add with only slight hesitation, casting it up.

"And grey, a breath of air." Six threads hang in the air before you. The huge woman is staring at them with a bigger smile.

"They sound like shit together," you inform your supporters with an unwavering scowl. "Make them pretty.

"And sew me a quilt."

-{}-

Having spent some time wandering in search of somewhere to read your books, you, Sima, have resigned to sitting in the tavern. Not before someone noticed you had no shoes and gave you an old pair, though. These people are unnaturally nice and it's weirding you out a little. They're tatty leather boots your tiny feet are practically lost in, complete with split-toed socks that have been half-eaten by the sock monster and spat out again. Still pretty convenient, though

Like pretty much everything in this village this place is small and disappointing. Six or so round tables are scattered in front of a shabby bar, most of them empty save for one tucked behind the door. From it come the sounds of people who have got very drunk in a very short amount of time. You can't have been walking around for more than an hour or two and that's really stupid. Under the stern gaze of the woman behind the bar you scuttle between the tables with your head down. You slide onto a stool as far from the door as possible, laying your books on the table. God it's a relief to put them down.

You feel the weight of the woman's eyes lift off you as she takes a rag out from under the bar to more evenly spread grime around the surface of a mug. A quick glance around the room assures you its few other occupants, including the drunks, are ignoring you completely. You open one of the history books to its first page.

You can't even read the _title_.

God _damn _video game worlds and their nonexistent languages.

You spend far too long turning the book over, poking it, and putting fingers to your temples to will it into coherence with your _epic mind powers_. You do not have epic mind powers. This fails completely.

While you try figuring that out, the narration is going to drift away from how boring you're being and eavesdrop on those drunk guys. Wow, you really are getting good at being boring this chapter, aren't you? Too much of that and we'll have to revoke your protagonist privileges. That librarian lady would make a better protagonist than you at this rate.

Even the narration is going off on a tangent. This bodes ill for the progress of the story. Observe as the viewpoint swings to the table tucked behind the door and its pack of drunken young men and women lounging all over each other. They jeer and argue and flail mugs of what hopefully isn't beer because this is a diverse and developed world and someone must have invented a more exotic alcoholic drink. It's probably beer. Beer is practically a universal constant, especially terrible beer. All six are garbed in chainmail, boiled leather and poorly-dyed cloth, the grime caking their skin almost obscuring their lattices of scars. Almost. Most of their conversation is directed at the muscular fellow in the centre of the table, whose dark brown hair looks like it picked a fight with a hedge and lost. Now isn't that a familiar simile. If the narration didn't know better, it could almost be claimed that this young man is one mobslayer by the name of Tark!

Thing is, the narration doesn't know better and that's actually him. Observe the conversation.

"This is a right fuckin' mess, this is," says a blonde man, gesturing with his mug for emphasis. "How's we gonna convince anything a' anyone, wait, no, 'nyone a' anything, if you're just gonna keep fuckin' up the whole sublic peaking thing?"

"Dunno," mumbles the mobslayer, staring gloomily into his cup. "Gotta, we gotta." His brow furrows with the effort of thought. "Gotta show them. Yeah."

"Yeah, show 'em, not tell em!" bellows the woman next to him, giving him a hearty slap on the back that sends him faceplanting into the table. She thrusts her mug into the air. "Make an example! Thass why we gotta creeper inna first place, eh?"

"'S right!" Another, considerably smaller with a bedraggled fringe covering her eyes, smacks a hand on the table. "Gots ta make an impression." Tark Mobslayer rises again from the wood with a glare at the woman beside him that would set lesser beings on fire.

"Liberate them from their fears!" cries a scrawny, dark man across the table. "Liberation! Liberation!"

"Liber… libbub… yeah!" the broad man beside him agrees. He takes a hearty swig of his drink for good measure.

"Thought it'd be easier than this," mutters Tark, finished boring holes in the woman's side and returning to stare at the dregs in his mug. "Convincing people to, to thing. Not be 'fraid a monsters. But they don' listen. They don't."

"'Cause y' didn't _sell _it to 'em," hisses the small woman, hunching over the table so her grimy tresses spill over it. It's hard to tell their colour through the muck. "Small place like this, not used to new ideas. Shoulda, shoulda, shoulda tried a big city. Yeah. Faultshiver or, or coulda gone down ta Siltstreaks. Up Swampheart way. Ya know?"

The broad man squints at her over his mug. "Not fortresses. Bad places, fortresses. S'no good."

"Can't go there," Tark mumbles. "Too far. Couldn't've got that far."

"There, there," says the huge woman beside him, attempting to pat him on the back and missing. "We'll find 'im sometime, s'right?"

"And then you can set everything right!" The scrawny one grins. The mug in his long brown fingers is surprisingly full. "But first… _liberation_."

"Libbubation!" agrees the broad one. With that beautiful insight in mind, let us now swing back to Sima, who appears to have figured out how to read.

You, Sima, have indeed figured out how to read. This is possibly the greatest triumph of your life. You were expecting to get English letters laid on top of the pointy script since that seems to be the theme here, but with a few minutes' staring it's just started to make sense to you. It really is convenient. You're still reading it like a five-year-old and you have to mouth the syllables, but at least you understand what it says.

Mythology isn't as much your _thing _as history is, but the two can be pretty closely linked. This doesn't seem to be an age where people differentiate much, anyway. This place's pantheon seems about as disappointing as the village, its gods pretty humanoid and for some reason mostly male. There's _one _goddess in the books you can see by flicking through. _Disappointing_. Except there's something about some old gods who got killed or something; Rana, Steve, Black Steve (what the fuck) and apparently Beast Boy. _Teen Titans _was your childhood! This is bizarre. They've got some kind of king-of-the-gods thing going on, but one of the books says it's some guy called Notch, the second a creepy-as dude called Herobrine, and the third says there is no ruler. As though that wasn't enough, the book about the Notch guy paints _Herobrine _as a devil figure, and the Herobrine book paints _Notch _as a devil figure. The other one doesn't seem to differentiate between their levels of godly arsehole-ness. Confusing stuff. You're not sure exactly what you're looking for. You're half-expecting to find out you're sort of Chosen One and there's some cool and mysterious prophecy about you. That's what normally happens in this type of situation. Person gets mysteriously transported to another world? Must be some _destiny _afoot. There's lots of stuff about heroes in here, sure, and some of them sound pretty badass; this group of people who sound like all the different benders from _Avatar: Legend of Aang _(Sienna thought it was amazing, but you never got into it), these three guys who slew some monster kings and ruled some dimensions, this girl who killed some dragon or something and got a bunch of cool powers. _Lai Adelainver_, the books call heroes, singular _Adelain_. The language is pretty great.

Blithe mentions of 'spirits' are thrown about, much more commonly than mythical creatures. You guess if you live in a world full of actual monsters you prefer to get away from them in your mythology. The monsters you've already run into appear pretty regularly, though, as well as a few you haven't seen yet. Slimes, for one, which strikes you as incredibly unoriginal save for the fact that they're cubes. Really. Cube slimes. Not your regular blobby slimes, _cube _slimes. What the fuck. There are plenty of things mentioned that you really wouldn't like to meet and/or hope don't actually exist, like zombie pigmen. Seriously, what the fuck.

In the end all three books turn out pretty useless. You still don't know what you're looking for and if there are any mysterious prophecies about you, they're not conveniently written down in these. You have no idea what to do. Feeling the beginnings of another mood slinking up from your gut, you plonk your elbows on the table and cradle your head in your hands. Ugh, you have to look over those records too to figure out how to get the creeper out of here and also keep the other things from murdering you. Fuck everything these jerks force you to do.

Someone shrieks with laughter from the drunkards' table.

You'll get around to the thing eventually.

**A/N: LIBBUBATION**

**Lots and lots of references. Got to love references. I'm trying to avoid big exposition spiels and give things to you slowly, so you'll find out more about the world as we go on whenever it's relevant.**

**Happy Independence Day to Americans! **

**From Wednesday to Wednesday I'll be in Japan (_SO_ _EXCITED_), so you won'tbe able to contact me during then. I'm getting my friend to publish next chapter, though, so you don't have to miss out. Buffers are incredibly convenient.**

**I don't keep up with Minecraft updates anymore, but I checked the wiki for things on Rana and Dock's other mobs and _oh my goodness Guardians and water monuments. _BE STILL MY BEATING HEART. Jeb has finally done something so undeniably right that if awesome was a circle it would go right around three times and still land firmly in the 'heck yes' zone. It almost makes up for horses. _Almost. _Might be able to incorporate the thing, but probably won't; I doubt we'll be heading far enough out into the ocean for them to be relevant. Sigh. Some other story, perhaps. _Who am I kidding there is absolutely no way I will _not _write about these things swoooooon_**


	8. Complete Success

**A/N: Hello friends! FMF/cynicalDreamer here. Mellifluousness is currently in Japan right now having a ton of fun and entrusted me with uploading this chapter. I was supposed to do that yesterday but I am irresponsible and tend to forget to do things.**

**Hope you are all having a lovely day! Please enjoy this chapter and thank you for reading! Flu works very hard to make the most fantastic stories. x**

You are now Enderman.

You have just been whacked in the face with a bow because Skeleton considers gently shaking people awake something other people do.

You jolt up, knock your head on the ceiling and curl back inwards, groaning. Huge hands clutching your head, you manage to crack one eye open and glare at Skeleton, who's grinning at you. "Wakey-wakey, moonlight, you've got a Minecrafter to pick up so we can get my friend back."

"She's our friend too!" screeches Spider from somewhere beyond her. She cranes her skull to make a face at him. Scowling, you slip out of the dimension for a moment to stand behind her in a shower of violet. Your eyes burn holes in cave ceiling. She jumps and whips around.

"Don't _do_ that!"

"Too late, it already happened." Your internal radar informs you that the space six blocks above the rock is clear. "Time, Spider?"

"It's moonrise! We should goooo!"

"Right. Wait here." Knowing full well Skeleton will probably be up in a manner of moments just to spite you, you step through the ceiling. Damp grass pricks the soles of your feet like gravel, making you wince. The red tides of the plains flow away from you in all directions, the white blanket of the sky pocked with black stars above you. You are not aware you see in inverse colour, namely because no-one's ever told you. If someone did inform you of it you'd assert that you see the right colours and _they're_ the ones who invert the bloody things. You'd probably make them believe it, too.

Cool season damp hangs chilly in the air and pricks your hide. Walking the ten or so minutes to the village does not sound pleasant, so you slip once more through the cracks in the sky. Here, distance is relative and time is a constant. You could call it a 'place' if you wanted to be completely and utterly wrong.

You know full well seven colours of the rainbow have full control over the Realms. Here, though, colours eight through fourteen slink off surfaces when you try to look at them, hiding in the corners of your eyes. They're more likely to bend prisms through light than be bent through a prism themselves. Anything that relied on depth perception would go mad in here (out here? Trying to apply terms like that here twists you in knots), but endermen are built for Not-Space. You switch to your other set of senses. Organs, or at least what pass for them, give centre stage to your eyes, which are nuclear rave parties in unnatural colours. Now to figure out how to get back to the settlement. You'd think this would get easier with two hundred years' practice, but longer jumps have always been a pain. It's probably something wrong with you.

There it is. The Overworld shifts back into focus and the first seven colours latch possessively onto it. It takes a moment's blinking to reassert reality. That is, _one_ reality. You've been around other species too much, by which you mean pretty much all the time. Tilled ground grates at the soles of your feet, the inquisitive heads of winter crops just beginning to poke through. A squint at the violet lights of the village shows the gates jerking open and a familiar tiny form in blue-y green and orange creeping out. It gets a few blocks from the village, wound and ready to bolt, before stopping and looking around with terrified white eyes. You're not much of a prankster, but you sure are fond of intimidation tactics. In a second you're behind it.

"I assume you got the-" It shrieks and jumps two blocks in the air. "-information I require," you finish exasperatedly, as though it meant to inconvenience you. It whips around, shoulders hunched. Intimidation: successful.

"Y-y-y-y-yeah, I-I-I-I-I llllooked up some stuff," it stammers, craning its neck to look up at you. Its squeaky little voice grates on your nerves. You glower down at it. The not flying into an uncontrollable murderrage thing is weird and irritating. You don't know why it doesn't send you flying off the handle when it looks into your eyes, but you don't like it. The fact that you don't know bugs you almost as much as the thing itself. It's probably done something to you. You consider dragging it again, but conclude there are few things more annoying than it speaking and one of them is it screaming. The other is Skeleton.

"Hurry up, then," you growl, beckoning with a gargantuan hand and striding back the way you came. You're going to have to walk now or risk losing the useless creature. Stupid non-teleporting species. You take the red blocks with liquid strides and can hear it falling all over them behind you. Oh your god why is it so stupid.

Sure enough, you can make out the clockwork movement of Spider's legs stirring crimson grass a couple of world chunks away. Glimpses of the eight green points of his eyes steal between the curly blades. Skeleton shoves along behind him, purple-black and considerably more conspicuous. "If you had _waited_ a couple of minutes," you bellow, making the Minecrafter jump again, "you wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the cave."

"Wait, what?" Skeleton yells, cupping her hands to her mandible as though her voice transmitted physically. She acts like she's alive half the time. It's infuriating.

"Yeah, aren't we gonna go rescue Creeper?" demands Spider plaintively. Ugh. Why does no-one _get_ things?

"The Minecrafter needs to give its report and I need to formulate a proper plan," you yell, steadily more tired of the shouting thing. "If you keep rushing all over the place you're going to get us all killed!"

"That's racist terminology, Enderman!"

"Don't be facetious!"

"But she does that all the time!" cries Spider. You don't think he insults people deliberately but it's kind of funny anyway.

"Thanks, Spider, I knew I could count on you for support," says Skeleton, whacking him on the thorax.

"Why did you say that and still hit me?" He stares up at her with the startling quantities of horror his huge mouth can twist into.

"It's this little thing I like to call sarcasm, genius."

By now you've almost reached them and are ignoring the Minecrafter's sniggering. "You know he doesn't get sarcasm, Skeleton," you growl, glaring at her. Since you're in range you fling out one long arm and clip her in the side of the skull. She's sent staggering. Faster than most people could see she flicks an arrow out of the quiver over her scapulae and clutches it like a weapon.

"Do that again and I'll fuckin' stab you with this."

"I'd like to see you try," you shoot back, clenching your fists just as Spider whines "Guuuuuys!"

You relax and scowl at him. "Whaaaat?" you mock.

"Stop being so stupid!" He barrels into you and OH FUCK YOU'RE FALLING AGAIN. Giggling like claws scrabbling at glass, he rolls off you and pushes himself up on half his legs. His dripping grin meets your blazing eyes from where you're sprawled, resigned, in the grass. He chirrups with glee. "Enderman, you're silly!"

"Do you e-e-e-ever do anything but bowl him over?" asks the _eyusait_ from somewhere behind you, laughter in its stammer.

"No," you grumble. "His sole talent is knocking me to the ground. He can do absolutely nothing else." When Spider looks at you like a kicked puppy you sigh. "I was kidding, you buffoon, don't look at me like that."

"Don't say things you don't mean!" he shrieks, getting to his feet through a complicated process of hydraulic twitching. "Now let's goooo, I wanna do the thing already!"

"Yeah, I know you sure as Nether need your beauty sleep, Enderman, but we've got places to be." Oh fucking Skeleton. You warp to your feet and whack her in the skull again as you pass her.

-{}-

You are now yourself, dear reader. My, what a change!

You are still at the mercy of the narration, of course. This is probably not much better than being someone completely different.

Let us observe the following from a distance. Shh, be quiet. Can't you see it's the middle of the night? Good grief, you'd think you were born in a barn.

The village on the plain, and the other half of it in the desert, sleep with one eye open to the hostile night. It, the village rather than the night, is known to its inhabitants as Patchwork. This is completely irrelevant. Torchkids armed with flaming poles patrol the streets, lighting lamps to keep the Devil at bay. Or, more correctly, the daemons. It is said by mobs that Minecrafters capture the stars and bind them to their streets. Minecrafters neither know this nor care.

Look a little closer. You will not recognise the two women playing long-distance cards in the guard towers, but in a house within the walls a man climbs into bed. He considers a nomad girl who vanished as suddenly as she came.

A few streets away, in the seasick shadows in front of the tavern, a considerably younger man paces. His boots are thunder on the cobbles. The inhabitants of the house next to him are strongly considering throwing something. He is far too sober for his liking and is wondering if tomorrow will look better through the bottom of just one more glass. He wants to make a difference. He wants retribution. He also wants to kill something, but that's another matter altogether.

In the square, a monster sits with her hooves tucked beneath her and bristly fur fluffed against the chill. Torchlight sneaks up the dais' steps but doesn't dare poke at her cage. It, unlike the village children, has learned something from all the hissing and spitting she's done today. She leans her flat face against the bars and mutters prayers with bottomless eyes closed. If you asked, she'd tell you she's not worried. Just bored. That's also what she's telling herself. She doesn't believe it either.

Look out over the plains, green once more now we're not seeing through Enderman's eyes. Ten minutes' walk away four figures steal from a cave, two with eyes aglow, the third with no eyes at all. A little girl wonders if she's doing the right thing. A walking corpse plots bloody vengeance. An arachnid looks forward to a good time. A… whatever-he-is weighs risk and strategy.

And now, pull the eye of your attention up further. Observe, as you rise, biomes billowing out of the dark like smoke; constellations of bound stars are scattered across them, but are few and far between. The quilt of the country unwinds below us, then the wilderness to the east and little land to the west. The rainforests and rivers of the eastern kingdom. The savannah-baked brick of the one way in the west. Pay no attention to the smattering of cold biomes between the western land and western kingdom. Bloody useless generation algorithm. The amorphous blob of ocean between them is masked with twisting night-dyed cloud. It separates us from the ground now. Up here the air is thin, and the ocean at the edge of the world glitters further than even our all-seeing eye can squint.

It is said that, when the world is in turmoil and a _Lai Adelain_ – great hero – is rising, the whole land will feel it, and tense with anticipation.

But the War is over. The _Adelainver_ are dead. The tempest that ripped this fraction of the Overworld to shreds has been tamed and slunk off to tag somewhere else's walls with its mates. No great evil threatens the kingdoms. No children with mysterious birthmarks and magic swords are being raised by shepherds in the hills. Nothing but usual, dull, everyday evil has its fell and cruel grip on the land. There's no need for _Adelainver_ with flashy powers and magnificent hair in a time like this.

Can you hear that? There, on the edge of sound, on the border of the world…

The rattle of looms? The clatter of spinning wheels?

_Tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack…_

No.

There is nothing to hear.

The countries and their villages sleep with one eye open.

-{}-

While being yourself is all very well and you should certainly make a habit of it in other circumstances you're now Enderman again anyway.

You are getting angry.

This is a risk. This is in far too many ways a risk, and of all the things you hate in the world not even Skeleton can top risks. You should have checked out the village yourself, not left some stupid _eyusait _to do it. Can't trust it. It could've sabotaged you in so many ways you can't even count them and, no, you need to get Spider to stay behind, it's far too dangerous for him. You stop in your tracks and oh your god the fucking _eyusait_ smacks into you again. You whip around with a backhanded slap that sends it flying. Its shriek rings in your ears.

"Wow, Enderman, you're fucking graceful." Skeleton grins at you.

"I know." You don't bother to look at her. "Spider, you're staying here, it's too dangerous," you announce, daring him to object with a solar glare. His face contorts into the closest he can get to a gapingly despondent frown.

"But I wanna goooo!"

"No. There's no need for you to risk going in. For that matter, I don't need you either, Skeleton." You straighten to your full height of two blocks and eight tenths for maximum authority value. With your eyes you bore into the yellow pinpoints in the white depths of her sockets.

"And I thought it was Creeper's job to play everyone's mother," she shoots back, matching you glower for glower despite her lack of a face. "You can boss Spider around as much as you like, but you can't control me. I'm a free mob, Enderman. Can't be tamed." Sometimes you have no idea where she pulls all the unbelievably stupid things she says from.

"He doesn't _boss me around,"_ says Spider, affronted. His huge grin flicks back to you and his mandibles twitch. "I'm going to go in anyway!"

"No you won't."

"I'd be p-p-p-pretty okay with ssssstaying out here," the Minecrafter wheezes, clutching its chest from against a halfblock a little way away. It hasn't bothered to get up yet.

"Me and it could trade places!" chirps Spider, eyes glittering at you.

"No you can't. You're staying here. It's coming with me." You step out of the dimension for a moment and step in again behind the _eyusait_, grabbing it by the back of its extra-skin-thing. Shirt or whatever it's called. You drag it for a few blocks but it coughs and flails and wheezes something like "I'mcomingI'm_coming"_ until you release it. That is far too entertaining.

"Have fun waiting around like a chump, Spider," says Skeleton from behind you as you dust off your hands. The _eyusait_ climbs stiffly to its feet, muttering under its breath. Once Skeleton is beside you, you turn to give Spider another glare for good measure. He stands with his legs' many joints hunched over him and his head hanging low despite his permanent grin.

"Stay here," you repeat, jabbing a violet finger (palest yellow to you) of authority at him. "We'll return shortly." You just know he's planning something.

"Yeah, yeah, go away already!" he chirps. He is so planning something.

"Goodbye." You narrow yours eyes at him, but resign to turning and striding towards the village.

"Bye!"

"Seeya, Spider."

"_Poerr!_ Bye, _eyusait!"_ You don't bother looking around, so you don't see it take a moment to realise he's talking to it and give him a surprised smile.

"Heh, bye, Mister Spider!"

"Not _mester_, dumbass, just Spider!"

"Right."

"Are you quite done?" you demand, scowling over your shoulder to see the _eyusait_ roll its eyes and limp after you, arms wrapped around its ribs.

"Can't you see they're having a moment, Enderman?" quips Skeleton.

"No. Keep in mind that if we don't get Creeper out of there tonight we'll be getting her head and body out separately." Her mandible snaps shut. That's one way to shut her up. You beckon to her and stride away.

Not, however, before you become Spider. If you were a more observant person you might notice the way Skeleton clutches her bow tight in yellowed phalanges. How the violet spikes in Enderman's knuckles slide in and out as he fights with fists that desperately want to clench.

But you are not very observant and are in fact just slightly miffed. You used to be scared of Enderman, but you've dragged him out of enough of his endless low points that you know he's just a huge goof! And now he's just worried about Creeper because he's a big dumb pessimist like Skeleton. They're way more alike than he admits. Because he's dumb.

The _eyusait_ is funny! It's almost like a person, how it talks to you and everything. You hope it doesn't go away when you get Creeper. You don't like going against Enderman because you don't like going against people in general, but there's no way you're going to pass up the chance to do something this awesome! You were looking forwards to this so hard! SO HARD. Enderman's going to get pissed but you don't really care.

The thought of Enderman reminds you to be safety-conscious sometimes (almost never). You go around the side of the village instead of right up to the gates. Convenient of them to make the walls out of climbable wood and not put ledges on top!

There is absolutely no way this can go wrong whatsoever, you think from halfway up the wall and a perfectly vertical position.

-{}-

You are now Skeleton, waiting by a wicker side gate with the _eyusait_ while Enderman sees about unlocking it from the inside. Not like he could have just ripped it out of the wall with his bullshit enderman block-movey powers, no. That would be too easy. The _eyusait_ sits on a block beside you, hunched over with its arms wrapped around its ribcage. Its breathy wheezing is irritating the fuck out of you. You're pacing, just because you're bored of course, bow in your right hand, an arrow in your left.

A sharp _zzt_ cuts through your vision (source right, enderman) and you whip around to see the void that is Enderman fiddling with the wicker gate's scribble. Endermen are nothing but outlines to you. No veins, no organs, not so much as a fizzing brain. Bloody aliens. After a moment he shoves the bar across the inside out of the way (resistance removed) and yanks the gate open; you push past him and hold your bones stiffly to keep from clanking. Torch chatter fills the abyss between the lines with resonance that rattles up your legs. It skips up your vertebrae, rebounds around your skull. Holy shit. You never get noise like that. Under the tide your clicking footsteps give up on being heard, curl up in a corner and cry.

"_Eyusait_, get in here," Enderman orders, sticking his head outside to glare at it. You can barely see the words under the crackling of the torch-poles (source left right right behind left right left left right sweet oblivion the fuck is going on). The tendrils of your consciousness, or mind, or soul, or whatever the fuck it is, twist and writhe in the blackness of your skull. Vibrating with tension, plaiting themselves in fishtails and helices. You realise you aren't holding your bones any tighter than you were before and you still feel like a coiled spring.

Groaning, the Minecrafter limps into the village behind Enderman. A moment's rearranging his too-long limbs and he's got the gate closed and barred again. You tap your arrow against a femur impatiently while the Minecrafter shuffles in. Finally Enderman turns to the creature and shoves a flat tipped-finger in its face. "The square. Take us there."

"Yeah, yeah," it mutters, not meeting his eyes. It rubs its sides and winces as he glowers at it. After looking around for a moment it raises one arm to point down the street. "I th-th-th-th-th- uh… fuck. It's probably this way." You follow at what may or may not be a power walk as it hobbles off. Okay, maybe a trot. A run. You are completely composed and unworried and there is absolutely no reason for anyone to question that.

The outlines of the buildings all look the same and any hope for a mental map is brutally beaten and thrown out the window. Progress down the streets seems to take around six eternities while it ums and ahs at junctions and leads you the wrong way. Again. And again. And again. And agHOLY SHIT YOU WILL CUT A BITCH. Finally, finally the lines spread out and the sky's abyss is free from the buildings' clutches. Creeper's heartbeats patter in the spaces between the torchlight cacophony. You restrain yourself from running across the square like an idiot and stride over to her with complete calm. You are also not the most honest of people and your narration is not completely reliable.

On the dais in the centre of the square, you grab the bars of the you-sized cage (_someone is going to regret being born_) and train your sockets on the form inside. She's already on her feet, radiating happiness. All four heartbeats pulse at you, making each set of six chambers sing. One faster, the others there to speed things up when needed. Enough blood courses through her veins and all her organs are in the right place; the only thing out of the ordinary is her brain buzzing a little slowly. Concussion, maybe. You're still going to murder someone.

"Ah, Skeleton! It's about time you got here," she rasps, cocking her scribbly head at you. "That was quite the sprint."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Must be going nuts, Creeper." Her bark-laugh cuts through the torchlight like Spider through a fresh cow carcass. Enderman appears beside you in a shower of noise and misty edges. You manage not to jump for once.

"Good to see you, Enderman," says Creeper with a twitch of her mouth as he wraps huge fingers around two bars.

"And you." With a grunt he heaves, gritting huge fangs, and the bars scream apart in quite possibly the loudest noise you have ever seen. "Fuck," he says with extraordinary eloquence as Creeper steps daintily through the gap. He's bent over with his hands on his knees, panting. At some point the Minecrafter got onto the dais too and is staring at the bent bars with open-mouthed horror, hands hovering around its ears.

"Oh my g-g-g-g-g-god."

"Now that I've successfully fucked everything up," growls Enderman, glaring at the nearest buildings as though they insulted the Enderdragon, "we need to get out. Immediately."

"You haven't fu- _messed_ anything up." Creeper shakes her head at him. "We are certainly in need of an exit, though. I for one am completely and utterly in favour of leaving this horrible place and never, ever coming back."

"How about we get back at the douche who dragged you in here first?" You force the image of a grin onto your skull, brandishing your bow.

"What? No, you are _not_ going on some ridiculous revenge mission, Skeleton," Enderman says, whirling around to scowl at you. "We need to get out. It's too dangerous here."

"I'm sure it won't be necessary," says Creeper, dancing from hoof to hoof. "I'd much prefer to leave, Skeleton, really."

"Oh, come _on_," you say exasperatedly, not rolling your eyes only because you don't have any. "Don't you want to get back at that guy?"

"Um, I think people are coming." The Minecrafter has straightened up a little and its head is flicking around. Creeper looks up.

"I don't hear anything."

Then there's a thunder of boots on cobbles and oh shit.

-{}-

You are now Spider a few minutes ago.

Most people use the streets when walking through enemy settlements full of slightly less than four hundred armed and murderous members of one of the most dangerous species on the Overworld. Thing is that you are Spider, not Most People, and you consider streets a novel idea but not one that applies to you. Besides, leaping dramatically between the rooftops is too much fun to pass up! YOU ARE A NINJA. You do not know what a ninja is and this comparison means nothing to you.

You also have no idea where you're going. This is not much of a change from the usual so you don't really care! You navigate the rooftop jungle with all the gleeful incomprehension of a five-year-old with a Tesla coil. Scents of blood and guts and other yummy things leak through the wood and make your mandibles twitch. You can't be bothered going through all the hassle of breaking into a house and eating the occupants, though. You stay strong. You resist the urge.

The place isn't huge and after a few minutes the sounds of sleepy hearts are broken by one that's pretty definitely awake. You hang low with your claws spread to inch down the roof and peer over the eaves, grin widening so you can smell better. There's some guy pacing down there, across the street! He's strong and smells like fermentation and gross. You kind of want to try attack him. That could be fun. But if he screams you could get the whole village down on you, which would kind of suck.

He makes the decision for you by looking up and yelling. Whoops.

He equips a huge broadsword and you're lunging before you see its diamond edge catch torchlight and throw it at you. You hit. Into the wall, claws right through cloth arms. Go for the throat. Jar your teeth on chainmail. Ow. Spring off. He's getting up, sword a support. Dart in under the arm. Bite, fuck that's chainmail. Rush of air. Flat of the sword _smacks_, scattering stars across your vision. Legs flail, claw up his lower leg. He gasps, slices, misses. Girlish shriek, not from him. From behind him. You look up and see the sword and AGONY

Everything turns to blood. Claws. Fangs. Sharp edges. You are sharp edges. But mostly running, running and reaching and screaming. Mostly screaming, mostly theirs. Lots now. Too many. Too many sword-teeth, blade-claws. Not yours. Not enough claws. Up the walls, up the roofs. Rip them when in reach. Thunder on the cobbles. Gravity is optional. The walls are your floor. You spring. Race. Thunder. And the sky widens and the cobbles spread and _there_-

"Spider, what the fuck?" bellows Enderman, eyes huge.

"Minecrafters the fuck!" you shriek, barreling across the square.

And then everything goes to shit.


	9. Big Ideas

**A/N: Sorry I didn't publish this earlier, I completely forgot! I'm back from Japan and it was absolutely wonderful, though I was too tired to get any writing done. I'm really behind. The action scene here could have done with a quick rewrite, but that'd delay this even more. Bleh. We get to find out more about that nutty Creeper as well as some more minor characters! Woo! Things ****_really _****get happening pretty soon. Are you excited? The correct answer is yes. I sure am. Things. ****_Happening_****. So intense.**

You are now Creeper, and everything has gone to shit.

Six all-too-familiar Minecrafters spill into the square, as many more on their heels. Spider shoots from their midst towards you. They bristle with spears and swords. Pausing. Taking in the five of you, so you take in them. Two females, four males. Cut, ripped, bleeding, two more so than the others. Chainmail, cloth, scars and leather. Heart two matches heart one beat for panicked beat. You're speeding up. The lead one, blood halving its face and matting its hair, raises his sword. A diamond edge catches moonlight and sings with it. The _eyusait _adds an animal screech the others understand, gods know how. They charge!

One sprouts an arrow through the wrong side of the chest and trips over its feet. A glance at Skeleton shows she's already nocking another. Enderman's grabbing Spider to keep him from attacking. The Minecrafter is backing away. You make an executive decision.

Long legs thrown into a gallop. Neck lowered. Bristling ranks approaching at lightspeed. Your break into their midst and everythinggoes_fast_-

Hearts three and four kick into gear. Their extra neurons spark. Nerves at six times speed. _Jalsad _gunpowder-packed. Fizzles. Swells. It races gas-chased up your throat. _Spit-_

The block beneath you is broken and replaced as soon as explosive hits air. You zip through the earth. _Thud _– the blast, muffled by rock. You erupt next to the dais, bristling with static and wide-eyed with explosion high. Still at about four times speed, heaving, you whip around and take in the crater. That's a lot fewer charred messes than you were expecting. Whoopsy-daisy. You're out of practice.

"We're going," says Enderman, turning and loping off after a moment's staring. Spider screeches and follows on his heels. Grinning at you, Skeleton gestures with her bow at the street they vanished down.

"C'mon. The buggers'll be up soon with an explosion as shitty as that."

"Well, yes. Watch your language." You look at the one Minecrafter left standing, the little female from earlier in a half-crouch and horrified gape. "I'll have need of you yet, dear. Are you coming?"

It mouths blankly for a moment. "Yyyyyou e-e-e-e-e- _blew up_."

"Yes. Well, no, not quite. It's an intriguing process and I'd be happy to explain."

Skeleton flings up her hands. "Come _on-"_

"Some other time," you add, not missing a beat.

"You're shaking," it says.

"As are you. Won't you come? Please?" Come on, come on, you just _know _it's this one, this could be the greatest chance of your life. It gapes at you. You have a feeling the others haven't been nearly so polite to it.

"Um. Okay."

Success!

Skeleton leads you out.

-{}-

You are now Sima, and you're not entirely sure what just happened.

You're back in the enderman and spider's cave. It's a miracle you managed to get all the way back here with the spider as it is. Now that the enderman has finished yelling at the arachnid, the creeper and skeleton are respectively perched and sprawled on the stone couch and no-one seems to know what to do. You're on the ledge again, a torch crackling in your hands. You definitely did not freak out over lighting it again. You are also not a reliable narrator.

The enderman flings out one huge arm at you and glares at Creeper. You flinch. Ugh. "So why did you bring this thing back?" Gee, thanks, scary black dude. Your ribs haven't quite forgiven you for hitting that block at high speed yet, but they hurt a little less.

"Ah." It shifts, managing to look smug despite its apocalypse-despairing face. "I've been given a word from the gods, you see."

"Well shit." The skeleton throws its bone-hands up, rocking back in its seat. "Better drop everything and do a fucking rain dance."

"Whoa, is that what creepers do?" asks the spider, wide-eyed. It's huddled on the ground now, face and body a lattice of blue-oozing wounds. It's kind of completely disgusting and you don't like looking at it. The enderman and creeper spent a while fussing over it, but the levels of medical aid around here seem in the negatives. There's not much they can do except get covered in blue blood, which they've managed pretty successfully. The creeper spent a little while screaming over all the gore and had to go find a stream to wash itself in at one point. It was great.

"No, Spider, Skeleton's just being a sarcastic piece of shit yet again." The enderman raises its stick-arms from the sides of its weird tall seat to lace together fingers the length of rulers.

"Oh." Returning the skeleton's amused mime of an eyebrow raise with a flick of its head, the spider shrieks. "Shut up, Skeleton, everyone knows you're an atheist already!"

"So are you, _zkayg."_

"No!" It winces as the tissue on its face stretches. "I know it exists, I just don't like it that much." The skeleton snorts, which sounds more like a grate of shifting sarcophagus lids.

"Anyway," the enderman interrupts before the skeleton can say anything more, "genderless thousand-legged spider gods aside, continue with your explanation, Creeper."

"_Thank_ you." It shoots a glance at the skeleton, which manages to give the impression of sticking its tongue out. It does not have a tongue. Nor does it have anything to stick it out of. God the thing is mind-bending. You're kind of interested in what the creeper has to say, especially since it's the only one of these things that hasn't tried to kill you so far. Okay, it said killing you was understandable and is a racist piece of crap, but it was _nice _to you. Relatively. There's got to be _something _different about it.

It shifts to adjust its hooves. "The same day the Minecrafters, er, well, this whole ordeal began, I was woken around midday by a sound on the edge of hearing. I think it was rather sharp? I'm not sure. It can't be important. I followed it onto the hillside, where I'm sure a spirit of Ssarrkka, god of the sun, came over me!" It pauses for dramatic effect and frowns, or at least frowns more angrily than usual, when none of you gasp in awe. The enderman wheels huge fingers for it to go on. "Well, the sun glared in my eyes and I heard a voice like fire. It said-" it deepens its rasp – "Behold, soon there shall come to this land an alien, yea, that taketh the form of a Minecrafter, but behold, it shall speak as a mob. And thou shall be freed by it and take it unto the jungle, where behold, the prophets shall disclose untold wisdoms unto ye."

"So I'm guessing this is the Edited Creeper Edition of the Word of Ssarrkka," drawls the skeleton, tapping the back of the couch. The creeper's neck shoots ruler-straight and its fur follows suit as it glares at the undead. It settles back and closes its eyes as though reciting.

"You are simply an unaccepting person and I do not have to listen to your slander." The skeleton raises its hands and lack of a face to the ceiling as though praying for guidance. This is so weird.

The enderman narrows its eyes and leans forward. "You can't go around trusting every goddamn mysterious voice that wakes you in the middle of the day, Creeper," it warns. "Not all the spirits are trustworthy. In fact, most are deceptive little shits." Wow, it's talking about them like they exist. You expected it to be more of a sceptic.

A depthless eye cracks open. "It was not a spirit that spoke to me, Enderman! It was a god. I know I can trust the gods."

"But isn't Ssarrkka all about lies and stuff?" chirps the spider. The Creeper opens its other eye.

"Er." It glances down at its hooves and bobs its head before looking up again. "That is irrelevant," it rasps, voice rising defensively. Oh man, it really doesn't like being wrong. You work up the courage to get some much-needed attention.

"Sssso, um, you th-th-th-th-th-" fuck how can you fix that oh god um "-guess that, like, Word thing was about me?" You tighten your grip on the torch. It's happening. Your shitty video game quest is unfolding. You're going to slay a handsome princess and save a dragon. Wait, shit.

They're all staring at you now. Eek. "Indeed I do," the creeper rasps, torchlight catching on its eyes and making them glint amber. "You certainly fit the description. I'm not sure how the 'alien' part applies, however." It squints at you.

The enderman cocks its head at you, scowl deepening as it looks at you properly for what's probably the first time. Its gaze slinks down your spine like cold water. "Don't tell me you're from another dimension or some shit," it growls.

"Um," you say. You lean back and bring your feet up so you can hug your knees. "Well, that's actually kind of a-a-a-a-a-ac-" new word fuck "-right."

The skeleton throws back its skull and laughs. _Snap _goes the tomb door. "You're kidding. You're fucking joking."

"Yeah, I'm actually just mmmmmessing with you for the hell of it a-a-a-a-and I set up the whole Ssss- god thing, too," you say, letting your knees sink again and hunching over your torch. You grin.

They stare at you.

"I'm kidding. I'm actually from another dimension." There's a chorus of groans and leaning back in seats.

"Are you a spirit or something?" the enderman demands, gripping the side of his seat. You shake your head and stare at the sheepish flame of your torch.

"No, I'm a human, a-a-a-a-a- yeah."

"The fuck is a _human?"_ the skeleton cries.

"Um. What I am?" The spider shriek-laughs. You didn't know it was that funny but okay. Oops the enderman's glaring at you harder than usual. Better explain further. "Wwwell, we look like Minecrafters, I g-g-guess, but we're n-n-n-n-n- different?" Wow, well done you, really in-depth there. You have an urge to say something about how they're cooler than Minecrafters but you have a feeling it won't be well-received. "We come from this planet c-c-c-c-c- uh, named, Earth. It's pretty great, except for how it sssssucks. But there this whole thing is j-j-j-j-j- only a video game."

"Whatever might a _plah-net _be? And a _vee-deh-o gaym?"_ asks the creeper, eyes glittering. Not knowing about video games you can understand, but planets?

"Never mind all that," the enderman interrupts as you open your mouth, "how the Nether did you get here?"

"Well, I d-d-d-d-don't really know, at all, but I think it has to do with the video game thing?" Its face is unmoving so you keep going self-consciously. "Um. On e-e-e-e-e-Earth, we have a lot of technology, right. I think it's wwwwway ahead of what you have here and there are these things called video games, which are like." You wiggle the torch and your free hand's fingers vaguely. The creeper perked up at 'technology' and now seems to be hanging onto your every word. Oh god attention is overrated and you would like to go back to being ignored now please. "I don't even know how to e-e-e-e-e-e," fuck. "E-e-e," fuck. "Describe, it. It's like, you can tell stories through them?" The enderman's eyebrows are practically through the roof and the skeleton's lack thereof radiate the intention to contest them in altitude. The spider's just drooling slightly. You don't think it really gets this or cares. "Like, stories with pictures. That move. Because of technology. And you can control one of the characters or sometimes some of them." Even the creeper's looking dubious now. "I know it sounds wwwweird, but they exist! I play them a lot."

"Now tell us how this is relevant to anything," the skeleton says, drumming its phalanges on the back of the stone couch.

"Uh. Well, usually you just lllllook at them, right? Like the programmers, the guys who make them, are just showing you the story or wwwwhatever. But something weird happened when my friend was showing me the game and now I'm here and I don't know what's going on!" You fling your arms out, then feel stupid and drive the fingers of your free hand into your seat. They leave tiny dents. Weird-as block breaking bullshit.

"Well, I didn't know it was possible to out-bullshit Creeper," the skeleton comments, "but you've done it." The creeper sighs and turns its face to the ceiling before looking back at the undead.

"Look," it says, "I'm certain that this is real! I would be willing to go on a perilous journey to prove this. I want to discover the truth! I know what happened to me and I need to know why it happened." Its mouth twitches at the corner. "Don't you want to go on an adventure, Skeleton?"

The skeleton shuts its mandible.

"I wanna go on an adventure!" chirps the spider. "'Specially if it's perilous!"

"We are all shocked by this stunning development," growls the enderman, rolling its violet eyes. "Yes, Spider, that was sarcasm."

"We should go, Enderman! It'll be fun!"

"If you expect me to take part in anything that could be called 'perilous' in any way, shape or form, you don't know me at all, Spider." The arachnid's bloody mess of a face manages to twist into a vague resemblance of a pout. The creeper clicks in its throat, screwing its eyes shut and tilting its head back.

"Spider, _please_, your face-"

"My face is fine!" it shrieks. Well that's the lie of the year. You're okay with the gore because it's blue and doesn't look quite real, but _only _because it's blue. Gory video games are one thing, but the smell. Holy fuck. It's like stale pee with terrible perfume on it. Giant spider blood. Ugh.

"Sweet oblivion, Spider," says the skeleton, "there's more blood outside your body than there is in it."

"You're exaggerating!"

"It doesn't look like that much of an exaggeration, actually," you pipe up.

"See, Spider?" says the enderman, jerking a dinnerplate hand at you. "Even the _eyusait _can see how shitty you look."

"Which is why you should come with me so you can punch the bad guys so they don't slice me up again on the way!" The spider grins. The enderman narrows its eyes at it.

"You manipulative little sod."

"Your face is a maniputhingy little sod! Come with me!"

It glares. Finally it throws up its hands and sits back. "Fine. Fine, I'll come on your little kiddie quest and we can all go die horribly together. Like the shittiest family ever to do shitty family death shit."

"Yayayay!" The spider attempts to leap to its feet, screams like a mosquito being strangled by a violin and settles back. "Uh. Maybe tomorrow."

"I'm, uh." You stop when they all look at you again. Oh god why does that keep happening. Maybe because you're commanding their attention. Wow. "Hhhhow far away is this jungle, exactly?"

"Not far," says the creeper. The enderman snorts.

"Yeah, if you consider three goddamn days' travel 'not far'."

"Not far," the creeper repeats adamantly, looking defensive again.

"That's a lllllot of days," you say, tugging on an armpit-length black bang with your free hand.

"So long as you do what you're told I probably won't kill you," the enderman says as though that's in any way reassuring. You're not entirely sure you want to go through with this, but you don't know what you'd do otherwise. Or if you could even get away from these things.

"A lot of days in a place that isn't here sounds pretty good to me, actually," the skeleton comments. "Even if it's in the pursuit of the fountain of ultimate bullshit."

"I am going to ignore your vitriol and assume you are remorseful of it." The creeper holds its head high and looks to you. "I assume you are interested in coming?"

"Well, I don't rrreally have anywhere else to go," you admit, wincing. That's not a fun thing to realise. Everything that makes you _you _is back in the real world, where things actually make sense. Sometimes. Not very often. You don't really have an identity here. You're just the _eyusait_, the Minecrafter, to these things, as much as they're just 'the creeper' and 'the skeleton' and things to you. Wow, that's. That's not a nice thing to realise either. You're also completely at their mercy and fuck. You want to go home.

"Excellent," the thing hisses, a little too creepily. As though you just agreed. Which you didn't. Not really. You don't really agree at all and fuck. "Well, I'm absolutely famished," it continues, getting to its feet leg by long leg. "Would you like to come help me hunt, Skeleton?"

"Sure, let's get the fuck out of here." The skeleton rocks back and uses its momentum to stand, slinging its bow off its scapulae. You're pretty sure you're not supposed to have it strung all the time and use the string to suspend it across your shoulders but okay.

"_Poerr'n_, Spider, Enderman, _eyusait!"_ the creeper says, nodding at the skeleton. The undead gives a blithe wave and the pair navigate the cobweb maze to the exit. Violet fires tracking them, the enderman grunts.

"I'm going to get you something to eat," it says, warping to its feet with that horrible ear-raking noise. You hope for a second that it's talking to you. You haven't eaten since lunch yesterday and then everything happened at once.

"But I'm not huuuungryyyy," the spider whines, pouting up at it.

"And I'm not letting you keep us here for a couple of weeks by being a mangled mess," it growls, jabbing with a finger. Yeah, too much to hope for. "The more you eat, the quicker you heal. Basic goddamn science." That's some science. Completely foolproof. Darwin or whoever would be proud. Does this even have anything to do with Darwin? Crap.

The spider groans like a xylophone and a buzzsaw waltzing. "Fiiiiine. Get it from the settlements! They have great meat!"

"No. It's too dangerous. I'm putting healing herbs in it."

"Gross yucky pig food! Blech!"

"Good." It turns its glare on you and you hold your torch up for protection. "You." The Mighty Finger of Look-I'm-a-Bossy-Douche is turned on you. "Don't do anything."

A midge of courage buzzes to life in your gut. You frown, take a deep breath and blurt out, "Ssssstop bossing me around!"

Its scowl burns, purple mist swarming around its huge spindly form. "I will do what I like to you. You are a threat. I will treat you as such." Your courage midge is now regretting life choices and is considering a safer career, like working in a fly spray testing facility.

"I haven't d-d-d-d-done anything!" you attempt to assert, like an awesome heroine who stands up to people and things. It turns into a squeak somewhere between your brain and your mouth. "I don't even have a wwwweapon or anything!" You shouldn't insult it. You really shouldn't insult it. "You're j-j-j-j-just being a d-d-d-d-dick to me fffor the fun of it!" Oh shit you regret everything. It snarls and warps and the void of it blocks out everything and its steel fingers lock around your throat and you're-

The spider flicks out a leg and trips it up.

You drop and hit rock. Fuck. Waiting for your lungs to make amends with the air, you are dimly aware of the spider screeching "I said it's not for strangling!" _Zzzt _rakes the air.

"Spider-"

"Go get me food already!"

A pause stands awkwardly between them and shuffles its feet. You breathe heavily. You don't want to get up yet.

"I'll see you soon." _Zzt._ A weight in the air lifts. Oh thank God it's gone. After a couple of minutes you can push yourself gingerly up and sit against the front of your stone ledge.

"Thanks," you gasp, legs stretched out and one arm laid across your thighs.

"Watching him hurt you is funny!" Oh god what. "But I'm really hungry now and he's gonna keep at it for ages!" Oh god _what_.

"What do you mean, it's _funny?"_ you cry and regret it. Ow.

"It just is!" It's shuffled around to face you by now. God it's a mess. The torch clattered to a halt a block or two away when you dropped it and is too much effort to reach. Its guttering flame casts weird shadows on the arachnid's face, mixing blue splotches with red glow. Yeah, its huge mouth really is lined with backwards-facing needle teeth. Okay. "You should talk to me! What's your name really?"

You don't really want to talk to anyone ever again, but this could be time to straighten out the _eyusait _thing. "Sima. My llllast name's Mauheni."

"That's too many names! To turn? Weird name." Wow, that's actually a word in this language. Not even a particularly cool word like, you don't know, _dragon _or something. That's really disappointing. "I'm gonna call you that, Sima. I'm called Spider!" No shit.

"So, what's wwwith the whole thing wwwwhere you're just like," fuck that's a bad sentence. "Named what you are?"

"What's with the thing where you're named what you _aren't?"_ it retorts, mandibles twitching. Good point.

"But how do you tell each other apart?"

"It's easy! Like, I'm Spider, and my friend is Spider." _Haib _and _haib_. Exactly the same word and somehow it makes them sound completely different. What the fuck. It's as though there are layers upon layers to it, someone's entire life summarised in a couple of syllables. Which makes no sense. Okay.

"So… Spider?"

"No, Spider."

"Spider?"

"Spider!"

"Spider?" you say desperately. It shrieks like shoes on a wet floor and grins wider.

"Yeah! S'about time!" You laugh and regret it. Ow. It cocks its head at you. "When enderman gets back you can have some of my food because I wanna go on an adventure. Or maybe Creeper will give us some if she gets back first. 'Kay?"

"Thanks," you reply, managing a smile. It chirrs. You're not sure what that means.

"Let's talk about stuff! Tell me about the _Errt _place."

Hehe, languages without th sounds. You try to ignore the wave of homesickness that comes rolling in and fail miserably. "So long as yyyyou do most of the talking. My, like, e-e-e-everything hurts."

"Mine hurts more! You're a wuss!" You make a face.

-{}-

Some way away, in an inconsequential village half on the plain called Edgegrass and half in the desert Mirrorgrains, a young man lies on his side in an apothecary bed and glares a hole in the person next to him.

You are now the young man, for a little variety. This marks the occasion of the first Minecrafter perspective in the story! You do not know this because you are not a meta piece of shit, and even if you were you wouldn't care. You have too much on your mind.

The apothecary's sick bay was built in the vain hope that it wouldn't have to hold more than five or six people at a time. Patchwork doesn't have proper surgeons. All the extra beds they had to shove in have turned the longer walls into rows of communal sleeping platform, since by the time you were halfway down that street you'd picked up far more of a pack than your usual six.

Usual four, now.

You don't have to think about that until you're lighting pyres for them tomorrow so you beat the thought out of your mind with a metaphorical blunt object. The room is warmed by paranoid torches covering almost every available wall block and you're buzzing with herbal health potion. Next to you an extraordinary hairy guard or something is snoring like a revving car engine, your burns and lattice of new cuts on your everything are tingling and you cannot for the life of you get to sleep. You're not staring at the hairy guy. At least there are some mercies in this world.

Fortunately you've still got your face, since the useless beast pushed past you to get closer to the group's centre. Instead some foreign country's geography is mapped in second degree burns down your back and the apothecary had to shave the singed remains of the hair on the back of your head. That was not an experience you'd like to repeat in a hurry. He bound everything in an itchy herbal poultice and it is irritating the fuck out of you.

He's patrolling the space between the two rows of bed, checking all of you are asleep. After a moment he feels your steely eyes on him and turns, frowning before scuttling over. He cranes over your bed, lapis-edged robes fluttering – Patchwork can't afford the usual full blue – and looks you up and down. "Is there any pain?" he whispers.

"Only the worst fucking itch ever."

"Then go to sleep!"

"No." He opens his mouth to reply before whipping around like a frightened rabbit as the door at the other end of the room clicks open. Easily startled _and _an idiot. A bob of black curls pokes in, closely followed by a drifting Leader with a humourless smile. The apothecary glances at you and darts up the row, ducking his head at her; he whispers furiously for a moment while she just smiles and nods. Then she brushes past him while he watched with wide-eyed astonishment. As she makes her way over to you he totters after her, stopping in almost perfect synchronisation at the foot of your bed. Ice-eyed smile meets open scowl.

"Would you like to discuss this here or outside?" she murmurs.

"Outside. Whispering's annoying." You grunt and manage to pull yourself into a sitting position. Pausing a moment to get your bearings, you put weight on one foot.

"Mobslayer," the apothecary hisses, "you are _not _strong enough to be walking around!"

"'Course I'm strong enough," you mutter, managing to get to your feet despite your back's excruciating complaints. Then you fall over. Fortunately the apothecary catches you.

"Here, at least take this," he whispers desperately, letting you sway on your feet for a moment while he reaches into the tiny inventory at his belt. He takes out a match-sized stick he maximises with a quick spread of his hands and proceeds to drop. Swearing as it clatters and a few patients jolt awake, he crouches to retrieve it. Wow. This guy. So impressive.

A few painful minutes later you're sitting with Leader in the shop at the front of the building, in one of two chairs she flicked out of her inventory. Conveniently enough a clear space stretches between the shelves of potions and herbs and the ancient brewing stand, probably to keep the apothecary from poisoning his stock. You think that'd be pretty funny. Empty cauldrons stand guard either side of the stand on its stone slab platform. You're a couple of blocks away from it, facing Leader. You are not looking forward to this conversation.

"So," Leader murmurs with a smile that basks on rocks, leaning forwards to rest her elbows on her knees and steeple her fingers in front of her. "It seems your plan is beginning to fray at the seams, no?" You just stare at her. "A lovely idea in concept, I'm sure. It does not, however, hold well to reality."

"No-one could have predicted a bunch of mobs getting in here and breaking the creeper out," you growl.

The smile doesn't waver, and still doesn't want to have anything to do with her predatory eyes. "And now my apothecary's is full of my people. No doubt half of the village will be aware of this by morning. How will I explain how easily a group of mobs broke into our village _while the resident mobslayer was awake?"_

You strongly consider leaning over and pressing your thumbs into her eyes to get her to make more bearable noises. There are few things worse than failing at your job as badly as you have just done, though, and one is getting pissed and killing the Leader of the village. You attempt to resist the urge to yell and fail. "Don't you know what I'm trying to do here?" you roar, shooting to your feet with a white-knuckled grip on your walking stick. Fuck that hurts. You don't flinch. "I'm trying to _free _your village, Nenai! I'm trying to help you!"

Steepled brown fingers lace together instead. The smile widens. "You will call me Leader," she says, the order hidden under tarlike smoothness and cloudy softness. "And from whose awful tyranny are you trying to 'free' my villagers, Mobslayer? Mine?"

"Fear's!" you bellow, thumping the stick against the wooden floor. No-one gets it! No-one ever gets it! Her smile falters a little, bewilderment sneaking into the corners of her creeper's eyes. She doesn't get it either. "Fear of the dark, _zkayg_. The night, the underground. Mobs! It's got all of us trapped, Leader." Spitting it, you scowl and jab a finger at her like it's a knife, other hand tightening vicelike around the stick. You can barely stand and this is a terrible, terrible idea, but you are infuriated and you have run out of shits to give. "I'm going to free us! _We're _going to free us! The six of us will show the whole fucking lot of you!"

"Four," she murmurs as the smile splits her face again and tips ice down your spine. "And exactly how sorrowful are you that you are _four_, mister Mobslayer?"

"Don't ask irrelevant shit, Leader!" you snap. The smile smells fear and stretches like a cat.

"Your big ideas are all very well, Mobslayer, but I have twenty years on you and I can tell you that big ideas are deadly things." Torchlight dances on her long-sleeved tunic, breeches, shawl, plays with the dusty yellows and greens, turns them maroon and red. "If we are trapped, it is safely so. And if this is your idea of freedom -" she gestures to your back – "then you can keep it to yourself."

She's wrong. She's so wrong and you open your mouth to tell her how wrong she is but she frees a hand to wave you into silence as though you're a child. "I hope you understand what I am trying to do here. You know as well as I do that death is never far away from us. I am only trying to make it keep its distance from my loved ones in Patchwork a little longer."

"Come _on_, you're doing it _wrong_, you can't keep it away and you know it!" You attempt to keep your voice down and fail. The smile twitches. "I'm trying to make this godsdamn permanent!"

She sits back, flicking her green shawl over her shoulder. "I think once you are healed, you can take your big ideas somewhere else. Back through the wilderness, perhaps. I don't really mind."

She didn't even answer! "You can't just kick me out!" you roar. "You can't just ignore this!" She cocks her head.

"I'm sorry, would you rather leave now?"

You rock back and rake your hands through brown hair, regretting it immediately. Ow. "Can you at least let me handle those fucking mobs? And that girl?"

She gets to her feet with minimal stiffness, clenching and releasing a fist to equip a stone handaxe. "No, no, I'll handle them myself." With a quick slice of it she reduces her seat to a minimised block and a sprinkle of sawdust, snatching it out of the air. Tucking it into her inventory, the broad, short woman treats you to a smile one step away from fangs. "You need your rest, after all. I'll leave Apothecary to deal with your seat. Thank you for a very… interesting conversation." With that she minimises the axe between her palms, slips it into the pouch at her belt and drifts away. Feeble reserves of adrenalin without their buddy Rage to back them up squeak to find themselves left alone and drain into the ground. You're left to sink back into the chair, back screaming at you for the idiocy of standing up. Hands folded on the head of the staff, you watch her vanish between gloomy shelves and hanging bushels of sulky herbs.

You stew in the knowledge that you've lost.

(lost two out of six-)

(lost the ability to think about it-)

(because if you think about it too hard-)

(you think it's kind of funny)


	10. Mirror Image

**A/N: Quite obviously the most important thing we learn in this chapter is that Sima is a genwunner.**

**It's a really obscure reference ****_but still._**

You stop being Tark so you can be Creeper. This is a pretty big change. Brace yourself. Please keep appendages on the far side of the fourth wall at all times.

You, Creeper, are practically skipping in the brisk night air. It's lovely to stretch your legs again after two nights in a cage! You were getting worried Skeleton wouldn't turn up at all, but of course that was just a bit of negative thinking and you were not surprised at all when she and the others got you out. Not at all.

Now the curly blades of the plains you don't call Edgegrass brush against your thighs and withers, your black maw wide so the olfactory senses on the roof of your mouth can pick up the scents of prey. Mostly insects will be out at this time of night, which you really don't care for, but if you're lucky you'll stumble across a sleeping herd of cows or pigs. Perhaps a flock of sheep. At the moment you'd even go for chicken. Horrible tiny bony things, useless for eating. No respectable creature has that many bones. It's downright inconsiderate.

Skeleton, who is supposed to be helping look for prey and failing miserably, is fighting the tangled underbrush some distance away. The length of the grass is surprising considering how many mobs live in the cave network with Enderman and Spider! Don't they tend to the area at all? You make a habit of keeping the area around your cave relatively clear so you can move around easier. Perhaps they're mostly cave mobs and don't surface often. Skeleton wanted to live in the system when the two of you first arrived here, but it's far too close to the village for your tastes, not to mention overpopulated. You don't do well in crowds. Besides, you get any number of delinquents and ne'er-do-wells in big systems like that one. The gods know the kind of company you could be keeping! You and Skeleton eventually settled on your current cave, which is a more reasonable distance away. You would vehemently deny any sort of pigheadedness on your part. You are quite obviously a logical and compromising person.

"I think I've found the thorny bullshit plant party," calls Skeleton from a few blocks behind. You turn to see her tangled in spiky tendrils. Crackling a laugh, you spring over to her like a gazelle since it's easier than battling the grass and stop a few blocks away with a click of worry. You lift your head to peer at her over the greenery.

"It's not dangerous_, _is it? I wouldn't want to delay our departure by being poisoned or anything of the sort."

"Just stay there, useless lump, lemme chuck my quiver over." She navigates its strap carefully around a knot of thorns she's managed to get tangled in her ribcage somehow. Once she's got it in both hands she tosses it at you over the plants. Clicking in surprise, you rear up and flick out your three-tenth-long black tongue, managing to wrap it around the leather bundle and fall back onto your hooves. Skeleton stares at you in horror.

"Did you just catch it with your fucking _tongue?"_

"Wa'w I don' hath hanths!" you retort, setting it down gently. You spit and blow raspberries to clean your tongue. "Ugh. Don't you ever wash it?"

"You are so fucking disgusting. Grow some arms." Swearing and tripping, she struggles out of the thicket and brushes off a few clinging sprigs. "Why does this place suck so much?"

"Don't say anything about Enderman, _please._" You nudge the quiver with a hoof while she makes her way over. "Why didn't you toss over your bow? It would have made things easier."

"I don't want your _yatzeg_ gross drool all over it." She crouches to pick the quiver up and slings it over her scapulae again, dusting off her hands.

"I don't see why you're being so squeamish about it. It's not as though you can feel it. "

"Because pissing you off is fun." She flicks you in the head. You give a revolver rattle and swing your head to bat her on the humerus. "Come on, meaty buggers won't kill themselves."

"Oh, you know how I adore our fine comestible friends and their suicidal tendencies." The two of you continue; you're jumpier than usual, black eyes tracking every fluttering shadow and twitching bush. It always pays to be on your guard, of course. You remind Skeleton getting too far from the cave would not be favourable at the moment. As usual, she doesn't care. Her assurance that she's going to turn anything that so much as looks at you funny into a pincushion makes you feel better.

Your curiosity is growing as it is wont to do, so after an unsuccessful while broken only by encounters with home-headed mobs you think to ask, "Why are you _truly _coming, Skeleton?" She tenses almost defensively, so you give her as close as you can get to a smile in an attempt to reassure her.

"What, not convinced I'm in it to get out of this boring shithole?"

"No." She rolls her eyes. "At least, not only that."

She makes elaborate faces for a couple of minutes, most likely trying to put words together in a way that won't make her look soft. Her and her obsession with image. Eventually she gives up. "You take care of me, so I take care of you. Basic logic, Creeper."

"Do be careful or I might think you're capable of rudimentary compassion." She stares stonily ahead so you sigh and nuzzle her side. This turns silence into a banshee shriek and spectacular leap sideways, which has you laughing like a breakdancing saltshaker. Eventually she can release her bones from wire tension again and stand properly.

"Yeah, check out my sweet moves. Can't touch this."

"You're an incredibly majestic dancer, Skeleton."

"No, really, don't touch me. Fucking fleshies and your electric bullshit." She shakes her skull rapidly. "I thought you'd've got this by now."

You didn't forget about that at all. Not at _all. _Time to change the subject. "Go on, then, tell me why you intend on coming."

She yanks on the knifelike backs of her cervical vertebrae. Walking skeletons are comprised mostly of sharp edges. "Maybe 'cause of some misguided sense of duty."

You cock your head. "Oh?"

Her skeletal grin widens further than a lack of lips ought to permit – a projection from the electric consciousness lurking in her skull – and she makes jazz hands with chipped phalanges. "Guess who it's my duty to protect, O wise and faultless creeper." Despite your best efforts a smile sneaks into your eyes, even if it can't change your mouth. "Seems it's also my duty to stop you from starving. Come on."

"Oh, fine then, you terse bag of bones." You skip backwards and, tossing your head, spring off into the grass again. She follows.

-{}-

Your name is Doctor Miranda Chatburn, and you are the only one still working on the case of Sima Mauheni.

You sit with your elbows on your desk and head cupped in your hands, the results of your sixth test mocking you from your computer screen. The one piece of evidence from a missing persons case, a pile of what people have been calling 'dust' sitting on the little girl's bed. You'd hesitate to call it anything but 'the evidence', considering that as far as you are aware dust is _not _flat greyish-white squares as big as your bloody palm. You are a particulates scientist, so you have seen a whole lot of dust in the ten-odd years you've been in this job. That is not dust. You don't know what it _is_, but by now you know a lot about what it's _not._

Not any of the most common substances found in particulates. Or the second most common. Or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth. The percentage graphs now sitting on your screen continue to inform you that the evidence's composition is exactly _zero percent of anything._

The tests have taken months. The police have stopped looking. There are _no _leads. It's like she vanished off the face of the Earth. Sucked into another dimension or something. Despite all the TV shows you enjoy screaming at with your husband for their inaccuracy, forensics labs are understaffed and overworked. You've got too much work to do to keep at this.

At least you're not the one who has to tell the girl's family that the one piece of evidence in her case is nothing.

-{}-

You are now Sima.

You had to eat raw meat last night and you really don't want to talk about it.

Shortly after that and managing not to vomit you dropped off to sleep, since the creeper was kind enough to get materials for another plant-nest. It's not all that comfortable but it's better than sleeping on rock, which the other three are doing. You guess things are different when you're a giant black game enemy with teleportation abilities. Or you would if you were not currently asleep, seeing as it's around three in the morning. The mobs all went to bed early, which you are not aware of. You are not aware of a lot of things, except for the no doubt prophetic and mysterious dream you're having right now. It's bound to be amazing. If we look through your dream-eyes right now instead of staring at your curled form while you sleep we're definitely going to get some gorgeous imagery. Let's do that, in fact.

Is that-

Are you dreaming about getting drunk with the Cookie Monster?

_Disappointing._

One of the many things you are not aware of is that you're almost healed from the mockery of bruised ribs the Enderman gave you, as usual due to game mechanics. Bloody game mechanics, you wouldn't be thinking at all if you were conscious because bruised ribs are terrible. Were it not for game mechanics you wouldn't have been walking. Ah, game mechanics, you would be thinking instead, how ridiculously convenient you are.

In fact, it's really quite pointless to be you so early in the morning. Unless we're interested in sitting here for hours and watching you sleep. However exciting it would be to spend the next four thousand words on that, _no._

You successfully engage in a timeskip and sleep in until noon, spending a few groggy minutes wondering why no-one is awake.

It occurs to you that mobs are nocturnal.

Fuck.

While we perform a spectacular Timeskip x2 Combo, you spend an incredibly boring afternoon dozing. It sure is a good thing we don't have to do that ourselves. The next time you're woken is with a thump of a huge black hand next to your ear. You jolt straight from drowsiness to bolt upright panic. The enderman walks off with warbling laughter, leaving you to slump back and wait for your heart to realise you're not being murdered. After a moment you can pick off a few clinging burrs and fern leaflets, chancing a look around; the spider is slightly less horrible, currently limping towards the entrance and saying something about rinsing more of the blood off. An eight-legged limp is a pretty impressive thing to watch. The creeper is nowhere to be seen, but the skeleton is on the stone couch, hunched over what looks like a piece of wood. Upon closer inspection you can see it's carving it. With its fingers. Only its fingers.

"I need to figure out how to use an inventory," the enderman says from further into the cave and most of the way into an alcove. Rummaging and clinking noises shuffle guiltily over from it and a pile of what looks like miscellaneous junk broods behind it. Is that an old boot? That's an old boot. There's also something that looks like a potato peeler. "How the fuck am I going to carry all these incredibly important things?"

The skeleton looks up and regards the pile for a moment. "How about not taking a bunch of useless shit."

"I _said _this is all incredibly important." It straightens up, something vaguely triangular cradled in its head-sized hands and glinting in the glow from its eyes. "How are we going to even _survive _without… without… without whatever the fuck this thing is?" It brandishes the thing for emphasis.

You squint. "Is that a cheese grater?"

It glares at you with a look that says _your opinion is incorrect and irrelevant before you even conceive of it _before looking back at what's probably a cheese grater. It turns it over a few times. "Maybe," it concedes finally, tossing it back into the alcove and resuming its rummaging. "I'm still watching you, by the way, _eyusait."_

You roll your eyes. "Yeah, I nnnnknow." Experimentally you get your feet underneath you, which almost doesn't hurt, and manage to stand. Your neck cracks spectacularly when you jerk it from side to side, your back and even fingers joining in the fun. It is one of the most satisfying things in the world. "Um, is it okay if I go outside?" you ask and feel stupid. Like you need _permission _from these things.

It warbles. "Don't take forever, don't bother anyone and don't get yourself killed. That would disappoint Creeper. Otherwise, I don't care." 'You probably disappoint everyone you meet by _not _dying,' you would retort if you were a snarky heroine who is good at insults and standing up to people. You snatch a torch from the pile, strike it on the floor (and freak out and drop it) and slink out of the cave. You don't know where you're going or what you're looking for. 'Away' is nice. For that matter 'a way' is too. A way to get back home or know why this happened or, something. Something would be great right now.

This torch is bigger, but the lump of coal rammed into its wooden handle must be shoddy or something because it's guttering like it's being paid to give off as little light as possible. With this piece of shit only lighting up a couple of blocks around you the cave seems around ten times bigger. Infinite, even. A void. You are not fond of that image and attempt to push it out of your mind, which it sees as an invitation to invite some mates over and camp out on the metaphorical mind-couch. Now it's eating your mind-chips and smoking. The fact that you imagine this happening makes it a little better.

Did you mention you're scared of the dark? Probably not. You can't recall doing so.

The irregular cuboids of stone are jagged, the floor littered with foot-seeking sharp pebbles. You're so glad you have shoes now. One hand on the veins of sediment along the wall, the other flailing ahead with the torch, you walk. It's harder than coming in here since it's uphill and you're doing a lot of jumping, but at least you have a torch now! You've almost stopped falling on your butt every five seconds when you try to hop up the blocks. Almost. You're getting there. For the sake of your sanity you remind yourself you are not in fact in the real world. This is a video game, which is impossible and stupid. All of this is impossible and stupid and horrible. Maybe you're in a coma or something and having a vivid coma dream. That's actually pretty plausible. You really hope that's the case.

You also know that is _not _the case and you hate it.

Shortly you reach a junction, where half the cave slinks further upwards into the dark and the other half sinks into even deeper void. Not void. Not thinking about scary voids. You intended to head for the surface, but now curiosity is niggling at you. The mobs mentioned other monsters living in this place. Half of you is beating yourself up for so much as considering _deliberately seeking out_ fucking _monsters, _but imaginary Katie and imaginary Lynette are egging on the other half. That's what they'd do, if they were here. _Come on, it's fine, let's go see! Nothing to be afraid of. _Except everything. You wish they were really here. How does time here translate into time back home? It could have been just a couple of minutes over there like some shitty Alice in Wonderland knockoff, or the same amount of time you've experienced here, or ten times longer. Are they worried about you? Have they even noticed? Would _anyone _notice or care or miss you or anything? You're too busy being irrational about this to realise you're being irrational.

Eventually you head down.

Wound so tightly you are going to hit the ceiling if anything spooks you, you creep downwards, seeing daemons in every trick of torchlight on the walls. Rather than jump from block to block you're practically sitting on them to ease downwards. This is a terrible idea and you are a terrible person full of terrible ideas. You are completely and utterly sure of this. You flatten yourself against walls to sneak past the yawning maws of side tunnels as though they'll reach out to snap you up. _This is stupid._

A while's painful progress rewards you with the sight of dim, flickering light around a side tunnel's corner. Holy shit, is there a person down here? You're pretty sure cave-dwelling mobs don't use torches. Why a person would be down here you have no idea, but you're going to go see them anyway because fuck yes, people. Perhaps someone used HM05 and a blinding FLASH has lit the area. The thought amuses you. Oh god what if it's actually a monster.

You keep so close to the wall you are in danger of phasing into it and turn the corner, creeping up blocks that are gently climbing again. After a while it bulges, dipping to the right so it forms a bowl with a raised lip just over a block high. Sitting with her back against that barrier, a gargantuan longbow unstrung across her knees, is a young white woman. Her face is tilted to the ceiling, her eyes shut. A ceramic bowl of an oil lamp, alight at one end, sits beside her. It's actually a better light source than your torch. Wow. It's a good deal quieter, too, so you spend a couple of minutes figuring out how to blow yours out before creeping over to her. Moving quietly in these boots isn't all that hard, surprisingly enough. She looks, what, eighteen-ish? When you're within a couple of blocks her eyes snap open. You jump. Their dull grey irises look you up and down for a moment before she raises a long, pale finger to her lips and beckons you closer. Okay then. Is she hiding from something? Once you comply, she hooks a thumb over her shoulder at the lip of the bowl. You reach out your free hand to grip the top of it, jerking your head at it and looking at her questioningly. She nods, so you move a little closer to put both hands on it and peer over the top.

Creepers! Tiny creepers not much bigger than cats, sprawled all over each other like a heap of puppies. You estimate there's a little less than ten, in all shades of green from the light coat of the one you rescued to near-black, even a couple of brownish ones. A couple of them twitch in their sleep, black mouths considerably less frowny than that of the one you know. They're so cute and fuzzy holy shit. The bottom of the bowl is lined with ferns and mosses like the nests the creeper made for you and itself. You smile at them for a couple of minutes, fighting the urge to squee like a little girl, before ducking back and sitting against the rim beside the teenager. You are a teenager too. You forget this sometimes.

She makes a face, which you don't understand in the slightest, and seems to wait for a reaction. When you don't give one she looks as puzzled as you feel. Shaking her head, she leans over to unfasten the buckles on the leather messenger bag you didn't notice on her other side. After rummaging in it for a moment she pulls out a tiny cube of dirt, which she taps against her other palm and now there are two tiny cubes what the fuck. She hands the second to you, which you take with both hands and wide eyes. You turn it over a couple of times, trying to figure out what the fuck she did. She looks at you like she's concluded you are completely and utterly stupid. Setting her bow down beside her with the slightest of clicks, she twists onto her knees and raises herself above the rim. Her torso's not much longer than yours, but her legs are ridiculous. She's probably at least a head taller than you on her feet. She runs a thickly calloused hand through her close-cropped shock of ginger hair, taps her dirt block against her other palm to produce a third block, and lobs it across the bowl. It hits the far wall, where it rebounds barely half a block before it expands like popcorn and sticks in place. Whoa. You are impressed by her superior blocky majyyks.

The girl flicks her grey gaze back to you, miming chucking the block remaining in her hand at the one now stuck to the wall. After staring at your minicube for a moment you try tapping it against your other palm. You successfully create a brand new minicube! Congratulations!

[ 1 = 15]

[ 2 = 1]

You just _heard _stats. Okay. You are now aware that the first minicube is a stack originally containing sixteen blocks of dirt. You split it apart to remove one block from the stack.

_Terraria in real life._

Once you have decided this can't get much weirder you chuck your single block at the one the girl threw before and watch it stick in place, growing to full size. This is. Okay. For a few more minutes you help the girl by chucking additional blocks at hers, slowly realising that she seems to be covering the creeper babies' sleep-bowl-thing with them. You stop, staring at her questioningly. Once she notices she just blinks her flat grey eyes at you and gestures for you to continue. You don't really, um. You're not sure what she's planning, but this is weird. You spread your hands to the ceiling at her. She shakes her head and points at the blocks again.

You keep helping.

When there's only one block left uncovered along the rim of the bowl she makes a weird motion with her hand which, you figure out after a moment, means 'stop'. She gets to her feet, gesturing for you to be quiet again, and bends to rummage in her messenger bag. She pulls out something palm-sized and shiny, then two of the somethings, then four, and sets them on the dirt. She tugs on them gently and they expand again with popcorn suddenness. They're iron buckets filled with water, maybe three litres each. Realisation of what she's planning sneaks into the back of your skull and loiters in a corner, but is reluctant to come forward. A worm of unease is wriggling in your gut. Taking a bucket's handle in both hands, she jerks her head towards the other ones, so you pick one up. Fuck, that's heavy.

The girl staggers to the hole, sets her bucket on the ledge and pours the water in.

"What are you _doing?"_ you whisper, arms slack and eyes huge in horror. She glares at you, presses a finger to her mouth and snatches the second bucket from you, upending it into the hole. Clicks and rattles sound from inside now, bleary queries of "What's going on?" and "Creeper? Creeper, what's happening?" in high voices darting close on their heels.

"_What are youdoing?" _Your voice is rising as she grabs the third bucket and tosses it in.

"Is this water? Why is there water?"

"Are you going to help me or not?" she hisses, but without waiting for an answer hefts and empties the third bucket into the nest of creepers. The water level inside slops at the hole's lips. Their screams ring in your ears but you're frozen. In one fluid movement she taps out another dirtblock and flicks it into the hole.

It expands.

You can't hear them anymore.

"Wwwwhat did you _do?" _you cry, feeling rushing into your limbs. You practically fall towards the covered bowl, clutching at the dirt.

"Killed some mobs," says the girl, not bothering to keep her voice down anymore. She dusts off her hands and gives the nest a look that shows it's closely acquainted in her mind with mosquito poop. "Duh."

"But- b-b-b-but, they were like-" You whip around to face her, slack with horror, arms wide. "Like, _babies!"_

"Baby creepers grow into big creepers. Big creepers kill people." She doesn't even look at you, stacking the buckets into each other. "Science."

"But how could you _do _that?"

"Easy as one of them could kill us." She shrinks the stack of buckets by taking them in both hands and pressing her palms together. You look from her to the bowl and back again, gaping.

"But they're _babies!" _

"They're just mobs." Slinging her bag over her shoulders, she turns to face you with the only emotion on her face faint bewilderment. "It's not like they're people. Aren't you a little young to be down this far, anyway?"

"I'm o-o-o-o-o, uh, not… that… young." Excellent question dodge, +10 to agility, but fuck. Fuck, you feel sick. Why are you standing here talking to her when _fuck they're drowning why are you standing here. _Oh god, you _helped. _You whip back around and scrabble at the nearest block, ears strained for any sound from them. At all. You can't hear anything. You claw and dig. They aren't making any noise. Fuck. They're all dead. You're too late. You _helped. _You helped and now they're _dead._

"Kid, what the Nether?" Strong hands grip your shoulders and tear you away. You want to scream at her. "Are you nuts or something?"

"They're fucking _babies!" _you yell, struggling. "You k-k-k-k-k, k-k-k, _murdered _a bunch of _babies!"_

"I culled a bunch of monsters."If she hit you or something you could hate her, but she just stands there, holding you, nothing but puzzlement in her voice. "You're overreacting. Haven't you seen what one of those buggers can do to a person? You're lucky if you have a face left. My brothers weren't lucky. These fuckers are better off dead." You don't understand. You _can't_ understand. The mobs did things like this but they don't look like _humans. _Don't look like… people? Fuck. Some part of you has been counting seconds. It ticks off the two minute mark with sick finality. You sag in the girl's grip. _Fuck._

"Look, you from the village or something? I can take you back there, no problem. I'm a nomad passing through, see. You can get help or whatever. Don't you want to go home?"

Yes. Yes, yes, more than anything, _yes_. "Nnnno, lllook, I'm. Ffffuck." You take advantage of her loosened hold to duck free, snatch your torch, stand facing her with it in pale knuckles by your side. The dirt cover is in the corners of your eyes and when you aren't looking at it it's ringing in your ears. "Iiiii." You choke on the vowel. "I. Um. Bye."

You run. She stares, shakes her head and picks up her bow.

The dark is more comforting than the flicker of her oil lamp.

-{}-

Neither you nor she are present when six mothers come home to find their children dead and buried and turning to dust.


	11. Yellow Brick Road

**A/N: WE'RE OFF TO SEE THE PROPHEEETS**

**THE WONDERFUL PROPHETS OF WOODSHIELD**

**BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAAAAAAAUSE**

**BECAUSE CREEPER THINKS IT'LL BE GOOD**

**...shield**

**Apologies for last chapter, by the way. I could have done what I was trying to do there a lot more elegantly if I'd thought it out more rather than slapping you in the face with LOOK IS SAD BE SAD NOW. Publishing serially, man. ****_Huge pain. _****I'm only three chapters ahead now because of Japan and sickness and considering not updating next week so I can catch up a little. Bleh bleh bleh. That's not definite yet, but don't be surprised if there's no chapter then.**

**Enjoy this piece a'**** crap.**

You, Spider, are _so excited._

Once Creeper got someone to watch your caves and the Minecrafter wandered in again from wherever it went, the five of you set off. The half-moon hikes up mountains of cumulonimbus to your right and a little way behind you as you make your way towards the jungle. Enderman says it's this way, anyway. Skeleton makes a lot of comments about getting lost and dying horribly which makes you kind of unsure. But that would probably just be more of an adventure! You like the sound of that. _ADVENTURE. _Fuck yes. You are practically springing from block to block in excitement. This is going to be _metric tonnes_ of fun (you do not know what the metric system is) and you're all going to be bestest friends and meet a thingy and yes. You weren't listening when Creeper was talking about whatever happened. It's probably not important. And when you get back you can tell all your other bestest friends about it! It's going to be great. Sima took one of Enderman's torches with it, which he and Creeper whinged about. It could get seen and this whole thing would be annoying to explain. You don't like explaining things either so you get that! But Sima's also a lot faster when it's not tripping over every second block and Creeper really wants to get to the jungle. It got to keep it in the end. It's a little way behind the rest of you, hunched over the torch. Mammal body language is so confusing! It doesn't even give off a scent of emotion like normal species. It just smells like weird. You want to know what it's doing so you scuttle in an arc (turning on the spot with eight legs is a precise art you have yet to master) until you're abreast with it. The look on Enderman's face is worth it.

The creature looks up and blinks at you. It opens its mouth, probably to say 'uh' which is one of the most annoying not-even-words in the world so you interrupt it. "Sima! Are you sad?"

"Uh," it says anyway. Stupid stupid dumb. You make a face. "I… g-g-g-g-g, uh, suppose?" Its words are soft and flat and trudge through the air. You're pretty sure it's sad.

"You don't smell like sad or really anything so I can't tell! It's annoying! You should smell like things and not be dumb!" You power along and it's almost trotting to keep up, which you do not notice or care about. Nothing can halt the progress of ADVENTURE.

"C-c-c-c-c- will you sssslow down? Please?"

You groan like someone dragging a steel-fanged comb over bark, but slow your legs' powering anyway. Muttering its thanks, it gnaws on its lower lip and glances at the others' backs before looking back down at you. Walking this slow is annoying. You flex your mandibles impatiently. It sighs, glances ahead again and chucks its torch to one hand so it can flail. "Wwwww, fuck. In the cave, I, like, you nnnnknow when I went out?" You tell it to get on with it and it winces. "I went further d-d-d-d…" Its face screws up for a moment. "In."

"Did you see anyone? There are lots of cool people downcave! Like there's this one zombie, she's a really great dancer, and she says she has sick moves but moves can't get sick so I don't get what she's talking about."

"Uh." It tells you about meeting some Minecrafter and covering over a nest of creepers. You stare at it as you walk, uncomprehending. "And then she, uh. She poured some water in and killed them." Oh.

"See?" you screech, tossing your head and regretting it. Ow. The joint between your head and abdomen is still sore. You pretend that didn't happen. "Minecrafters are evil!" It digs the fingers of its free hand into its face.

"B-b-b-b-b, b-b-b-but is that, like, _normal?"_ Its voice is rising and a smell almost but not quite like fear clings to its light brown skin. Weird species. "Are they _all_ like that? D-d-d, bloody _hell_, they just kill you guys for _fun?"_ Obviously it doesn't know how the world works. Weird to have to explain something this basic.

"Duh!" You decide to use small words since it's dumb. "Minecrafters kill mobs, so mobs kill Minecrafters!" Its mouth hangs slightly open and its eyebrows are huddling together for security. Facial expressions. So weird. "We wreck their crops and stuff and sometimes they flood our caves but there's still a lot more mobs in the world than Minecrafters! Once we make them all die we won't have to worry about being murdered in the daytime but that's probably never gonna happen and we'll just be at war forever." Its face is contorting even further in what you're pretty sure is horror and you are beginning to process what just came out of your mouth. Oh god that's really depressing. Why did you say it like that. "But, like, we try really hard! Like Enderman, he's always been great at raiding villages and stuff." You angle your head in his direction. "He thinks he sucks but he doesn't. He saved a lot of people by killing Minecrafters!"

It blinks, shaking its head more like it's trying to dislodge bad thoughts from its inner ears than disagree. "But… aren't Minecrafters people too?"

"No! Don't be dumb!" It clamps its mouth shut and clasps its torch in both hands again, staring straight ahead. You really don't get this thing.

When you realise it's not going to entertain you any more you speed up to reach Creeper instead. She's cool. The rest of the night is uneventful; Other mobs appear out of the grass a few times, but you keep Sima far enough away that it could be mistaken for a dirtpusher despite the half-moon's cheeky light. Creeper's deft conversational manoeuvring usually means you can move on quickly. Apart from the occasional rest stop, you just walk a lot. The biome switches between shaggy grass taller than you, clusters of shrubs and horizon-spanning clear stretches. The plains further north where you were hatched had a lot of cool rock formations hunched in the grass, but this one's flat and boring. A whole lot of visibility and nothing much to see. The iridescent tapestry of stars being all shiny and stuff above your head are the only real landmarks. Enderman's the only one who can make any sense of them.

Eventually morning saunters over the horizon with the sole aim of being a cosmic party pooper. Creeper, who unlike you needs to eat every night, catches some dinner; Enderman's been snacking on gross yucky pig food all day. Sima's eventually convinced to try some fruit and refuses all offers of normal people food. _So dumb_. You can't imagine why anyone would choose _plants _over meat that's practically still twitching. Ripping out the throat is the best part! Enderman finds a cave that's not a useless gaping pit.

You can barely get to sleep. ADVENTURE.

The second night is about as boring. Plains. You are so sick of plains. Skeleton informs you she fuckin' loves plains, can't get enough of the things, best bloody biome Herobrine never created because he's fake as shit. You file this away for later use and never learn it's sarcasm.

The first thing of the night that's not completely dull happens a couple of hours before midnight. Sima, which has been tilting its head for the past few minutes, trots to catch up with you and Creeper. She blinks down at it in surprise. Wow, she's a head taller than it. Gnawing on its lower lip, it glances over its shoulder before whispering to the two of you, "Can you hear something? Like, people talking?"

Creeper cocks her head, dainty steps slowing. "No, I'm afraid not, dear," she replies. "You don't think we could be in danger, do you?" Curious, you open your mouth wider to test the air. Hey, that's a familiar smell! Sharp, sour and a little burnt.

"I smell Minecrafters!" you announce, making Creeper's eyes widen and her light green fur stand on end. "They're far away, though, don't worry!" She doesn't relax. Sima is craning its head and looking around.

"And how far is _far,_ exactly?" Creeper rasps. You chitter, widening your mouth.

"Over there." Enderman is marching back towards you with Skeleton not far behind him, pointing into the distance. You squint along his purple-black stick of an arm to see what looks like a group of bipeds maybe four or five world chunks away, spots of torchlight in their hands. Sima's torch makes it hard to see. "They're most likely a pack from the village, looking for the _eyusait _or Creeper or who-knows-what," Enderman continues, glaring at them.

"How many are there?" Are we in danger?" rattles Creeper, weaving from side to side in an attempt to see.

"Can't tell from here. _Someone's_ torch makes it bloody impossible to see," he growls. Sima winces. "If we keep our distance we should be fine. They're blind in the dark, useless things."

That's it. He gets you to walk at an angle away from them for a while and they don't see you. You wanted a fiiiight! This is so disappointing. Stupid dumb safety and its dumb stupid prevention of you ripping people apart.

The second interesting thing that happens is almost at dawn, when you reach one of the plains' three cities. Its stone walls tower maybe eight blocks above you, aglow with captured stars of torchlight. Buildings' peaked heads poke above them. "Great place to spend two nights, eh, Creeper?" quips Skeleton, earning her a bonk on the ribcage. Sima looks up at the place with an expression you don't get, but Enderman makes you all keep your distance. The sentry silhouettes patrolling two-block-thick walls remain blissfully unaware of you. _Disappointing._ Cave, food, sleep. Things better get more interesting by the time you reach the jungle or you're going to bite someone.

For most of the next night trees turn snooty branches upwards against the tar-soaked horizon. Finally! So close! Sure enough, around three in the morning (as far as you can tell from the trekking moon) you run into a solid wall of humidity. Shrubs bigger than you cling to the feet of tree ferns, beeches, cabbage trees, kowhai and innumerable others. Skeleton starts running into things because of all the lines, which is hilarious. As the foliage gets thicker Enderman has trouble getting all his limbs around clingy vines and grabby branches. He's just lucky it's not wet anymore. You take it all as an excuse to ignore gravity and spend most of your time upside down or sideways. Sima is gladder than ever for its torch and shoes, since most of you have perfect night vision and can still barely navigate. Also everything has thorns. _Everything._ Since you're mostly setae it doesn't do much to you, but Creeper's legs rapidly look like she's been dancing on mangled bodies. Compost-reek and decomposition clog in your olfactory glands.

And of course, the thicker the jungle, the more bugs! You are not aware that Sima's idea of a normal planet involves lots of mammals and birds, with most bugs not large enough to be noticeable. If you were, you would consider the dumbest thing ever. Some douchebag who made a video game thought farm animals could cover an entire planet, so the Overworld filled the gaps in its ecosystems with arthropods. So many arthropods. Or maybe the Overworld is just filled with arthropods and that same douchebag figured a game with that many bugs would never sell. There are plenty of bugs, especially in jungles, as big as you and even bigger! Sima spends a while squealing in delight and pointing them out. At least it can recognise a handsome creature (_like you_). Creeper names every one, which you're pretty sure is mostly bullshitting to cover the fact she has no idea about bug names.

Eventually Enderman locates the carcass of the road that once gutted the jungle, its cobbles cleaved by mosses and roots. Saplings take advantage of what's still a gap in the mosaic canopy to flaunt fabulous young branches. Striding in front of you and flinging his arms about, Enderman informs you the road was a thoroughfare before and during the War. Once rainforest mobs captured it they kept it in just enough disrepair to scare off Minecrafters. Sima beside you is pretty obviously enraptured. You don't see what it finds so interesting. "I led ambushes from there," your friend reminisces, pointing to a blobby mess of limestone lurking on the roadside a chunk or two away. Its lumpy back hunches at least four blocks high, still dwarfed by twenty- and fifty-block trees.

"So how many guys on your side did you kill in that?" inquires Skeleton from beside Enderman, jerking her mandible at the stone. Ohhh man, why does she always have to say mean things? Enderman's eyes blaze and he hefts a cinderblock hand as though to hit her. Oh no. Before you can do anything Creeper is between them, shoving Skeleton aside with her head and leg. "That's quite enough of that, thank you!" She rattles in her throat, casting a worried look at Enderman. Suckuuuuup. Skeleton rolls the black pits of her eyes as you scuttle up to see if you need to avert any extra douchiness. No, he's staring at the rock now, hands hanging by his sides again and a gentle scent of sad snaking down his tree branch limbs. Oh come on. Beside him now, just over a third of his ridiculous height, you nudge him in the calf to get his attention. He raises his arms in surprise, wide eyes flicking towards you, before he realises who it is and relaxes. As much as he ever relaxes, anyway. His chubby face falls into a sadder frown than usual. "You smell like sad," you inform him with the air of one who has uncovered a particularly juicy secret. With a sound like _brot_ and a twitch of the mouth he looks away again. He's moving at a comfortable pace. You wait.

"It certainly doesn't feel like twenty years ago," he says finally, deep voice barely a murmur. "Well, seventeen. Whatever." He flaps a hand at the air. "This place still looks like blood and screaming. I hate it."

"You hate most places!" He snorts. "It's okay. We're gonna find the thingy and be gone soon. You should be friends with Sima!"

His face twists in confusion for a moment while he attempts to find the distant railway your train of thought leapt to and used to speed into the sunset. Eventually he gives up. "What? To turn? Who?"

"The _eyusait_, dummy!" You twitch your mandibles at him when he stares down at you incredulously. "It's funny and it likes history! You'd like it!"

"I am not _talking_ to that _thing."_ He turns to fling a hand in its direction. It's strolling a few blocks behind you two with its torch hanging in one hand and something with compound eyes, glowy bits and far too many trailing limbs perched on the other. The smile on Sima's face is almost as wide as yours. "Just _look_ at it, it's fucking- isn't- isn't that wingbug fatally venomous?"

"Probably," you say with some admiration, craning to peer around your bulbous thorax.

"Good god."

"Ah, so, Enderman," Creeper rasps, trotting to catch up to the pair of you on Enderman's other side. He looks down at her, eyebrows raised in polite interest. "Our next issue, I believe, is finding out where we are meant to be going. Ssarrkka neglected to give anything more precise than 'go to the jungle'," she adds, cocking her head at Enderman. "I would like to suggest asking directions of some locals."

"No need for _that,"_ Enderman says just as you shriek "We don't need directions!" She smells amused.

"Because it's _heaps_ more efficient to wander the impenetrable fucking jungle none of us have been to for ages looking for a place that could look like anything," drawls Skeleton, coming up beside you. You assume she just feels like walking next to you and is not getting as close to Enderman as possible to piss him off.

Enderman scowls at the undead. She grins back. "We don't even know what to _ask,"_ he says exasperatedly, chopping the air in front of him with both hands. "Hello there, seen any fiery creeper sun gods and/or mystical goddamn prophets in the area, also I am not completely insane?"

Sima has cast off its many-winged friend and drifted over. The claws of its torch pick at broken cobbles underfoot and make glowering faces of the trees leaning onto the road. The Minecrafter listens for a moment, hunching its shoulders, before blurting out, "Mmmaybe we should ask about, like." It falters when it earns four multicoloured stares. So annoying. Why can't it just say stuff?

"Like?" prompts Creeper. Sima takes its torch in both hands and tries again.

"Like, weird activity or whatever? Heh. P-p-p-p-paranormal activity." It giggles. You don't get it but whatever.

"Yeah! Like spooky spirit stuff!" This sounds like an excellent idea to you. Meeting people. Spooky spirits. ADVENTURE.

"I suppose," says Enderman, reluctant to agree to something that wasn't his idea and would involve people going places. You want to go places. Going places. So fun.

"I'm gonna go look for a person!" you announce. He glares at you.

"No. You're not."

"Come oooon! I'm boooored!"

"Well, I'm going that way." Skeleton jerks a thumb over her shoulder towards the tangled brush on the far side of the road. "On the hunt for the Fountain of Dumb or whatever. Coming on my amazing heroic quest, Creeper?"

"No, I'll stay as a reference point for you." She shifts from hoof to hoof, rattling. "Do be careful, alright? It would be quite the pain to fish you out of some pit or something."

"You know me. Careful's my fucking _title."_ Creeper clicks in amusement. You're guessing that's sarcasm unless Skeleton got a title while you weren't looking. Or for that matter an ounce of caution. "_Poerr."_ With a wave the undead turns on her heel and stalks off, unslinging her recurve bow from her scapulae. It takes her a while to find a gap in the foliage big enough to fit through, but you're already creeping backwards towards the trees on this side. You are going to be helpful and awesome and everyone will be impressed when you come back knowing directions to the thingy so exact that, uh. That they're really exact. Yes. Nothing can go wrong. It's the perfect crime. Oh wait, Enderman will follow you. Craaap. You are a couple of blocks out of reach by now. _Now is the time._ "Enderman!"

"What?" He whirls around, mouth slightly open when he sees you halfway to the trees. "Wh-"

"Stay here so I can find my way back! Bye!" You execute a perfect Spider Spin by springing into the air, whipping to face the trees and taking off at a sprint the second you land. The cackle like a triumphant tin of rocks is not part of a Spider Spin. It is just you gloating.

With a leap to land between two branches and vault off them you are buried alive in green. Half-flying, legs catching on vines. Branches. Cube-clumps of leaves. Scattering clouds of wingbugs, scrambling up trunks. Jungles! Chaos and clamour of panicked bugs! Tangled vines, glowing night-blooms, interlocking limbs! Up is fun! You're weightless, dancing on twigs, swinging from branch to branch. You spend as much time hanging from their undersides as you do scuttling along their tops. This deep into the rainforest the canopy is a slow-motion warzone. No doubt in plant time it is an epic playing out, full of betrayal, deceit and romance. Those dastardly kauri and their alliance with the kapoks have long laid waste to the trees of Woodshield. But when a hero rises from amongst the lowly tucum palms, will it turn the tides of war, or will it fall prey to the temptation of the _kadla_'s forbidden fruit? Or something. As far as you are aware, though, the trees are just crammed together so tightly you can barely see the stars. All but the most pigheaded of plants have long since given up the forest floor to stinking compost and block-thick buttress roots. This high in the understory epiphytes and creepers of the plant variety rule mazes of branches as wide as one and a half blocks. You swing out over the shadow-sunk ground far below with shrieking glee. You're not afraid of heights! You're not afraid of anything!

This attitude gets you almost killed at least ten times and it's pretty much the best thing ever.

When the cuboid leaf-clumps of a wide fork in a branch are shifting beneath your feet a flash of mid-grey darts across your vision. You halt in your tracks, looking around, when a shortarse spider appears in front of you and skitters from side to side with eight eyes wide. His head is two tenths of a block lower than your height of one metre. You can tell he's a he since no darker spots are scattered across his thorax. He's young-as to be that light! Can't be older than eighteen months. You feel old.

"Oi, um," he says, mandibles working worriedly in his huge grin. "You're not gonna break my eggs, are you?"

"Eggs? You're barely hatched!" you shriek, looking around for the sac. There it is, hanging from a branch a few blocks above you by a tendril of sticky silk. About the size of a blender, bulging with six or seven tennis-ball-sized spheres in various shades of pink. You do not know what either blenders or tennis balls are and this comparison means nothing to you.

"I'm seventeen months, you know," he protests. "That's, y'know, pretty old." Hey, you were right about his age! Stupid dumb kid. You feel the need to assert your superiority.

"Talk to me when you're five! I'm older than you so I'm smarter than you!"

He blinks all eight of his crimson eyes at you. They're a lot redder than your practically orange ones. He's _pretty._ This is distressing. "Whoa, you're _five?_ That's old."

"So I know lots!" Being old is considered an achievement in spider society.

"Oi, um. Are you gonna break my eggs?" The other spider's gaze flicks to the sac above your heads. "Because, um, I'd have to kill you if you did that, see. Gotta protect the eggs. Um. Yeah."

"No, dumbarse, that's a stupid thing to do and you should feel stupid!" He relaxes even as you flick a many-jointed forelimb at him in indignation. "You're not gonna eat them when they hatch, are you?"

He glances up at them again. "Um, I dunno, maybe? We'll think about it when it happens, I guess. My mate probably would, she'd hate to let any weak ones, y'know, get loose or whatever. She's out hunting right now," he adds as though this justifies anything. He's stupid.

"Well she shouldn't kill them because killing them is dumb and annoying and counterintuitive!" You are a sophisticated person who uses big words shamelessly copied off Enderman. The spider is appropriately impressed by your vocabulary. Success! You have far too much experience with cannibalistic parents. You are firmly of the mind that weeding out the weakest may be a spider tradition, but tradition is fucking dumb.

"Okay?" He looks at you strangely. "Look, um, do you need anything? Because I'd feel safer with no-one around."

"Oh! Right!" You almost forgot with the thrill of ADVENTURE. "We're looking for a thingy! Where does spooky spirit stuff go on around here?" He shuffles his hind legs.

"Oh, there's a lot of that, yeah," he says. Ooh, _lots_ of spooky spirit stuff. This is excellent. You want to bite a spooky spirit. Yes.

"Tell me where it happens most!"

He stares into space for a moment, mandibles working slowly. "I could give you a scent trail, I guess."

"'Kay!"

He points it out for you amongst the rainforest's riot of smells and, thanking him, you follow Enderman's ozone-and-nickel reek into the trees. It always bothers you when people don't thank you, so you always try to thank others in the vain hope that they'll get the hint! Conflict is hard. You're only good at the kind that involves teeth.

An hour or so's flight back through the jungle brings you to the relative openness of the road. The moon scowls in disapproval at the path's state from somewhere past its zenith. You scuttle down a vine and detach where it ends a few blocks off the ground, landing with an eightfold clatter on broken cobbles. A quick glance around for the others reveals them sitting a chunk or so away. Creeper with her legs tucked beneath her, Enderman leaning his short torso against a tree trunk with pole-legs splayed. Sima sits on the cobbles between Creeper and for some reason Skeleton. Oh man, Skeleton beat you back! Hopefully you had more luck than her.

Enderman waves as you approach, mouth quirked in an almost-smile. "Guess who forgot she can't navigate her way out of a copse, let alone a fucking jungle," he sniggers, jerking a ruler-thumb at Skeleton.

"Yes, I told her she was bound to fall down some pit or other, but did she pay me any heed? No, of course not." Creeper clicks in her throat and Skeleton flicks her in the head. You are not aware that Creeper is joking. "She barely got a chunk away before she started panicking."

"I wasn't _panicking_, I was fucking- rightly- _rightly concerned,_ yeah. You're _exaggerating, baltay,"_ Skeleton retorts. Sima is trying and failing to hide its sniggers in cupped hands. You laugh like a banshee watching a horror movie.

"I'm not so sure, Skeleton," Enderman mocks. "I didn't think it was possible to get that hopelessly lost in under ten minutes."

"I know where the thing probably is!" You interrupt, since your thing is obviously much more important than this. Skeleton flings up her hands.

"Finally, something that's relevant to anything." She swings to her feet, Creeper jumping up on Sima's other side with eyes alight. "Let's go so I don't have to suffer through any more of Enderman's bullshit," Skeleton adds, shooting a creative hand gesture in his direction. He bares huge fangs at her before warping to his feet in a flurry of violet.

"_Eyusait_, come," he orders. Sima makes a face, but still gets stiffly to its feet.

"Nnnnot a dog, you know," it mutters, dusting itself off. Hehe, it's funny when it's wrong. Enderman ignores it and gestures to you.

"Lead the way, Spider. Let's get to this place so we can get home."

"Adventure is fun!" you protest, earning you rolled eyes. A little hurt, you twist away and open your mouth to find the scent again. Most people would not find something like that offensive and you are not most people. "This way, _meanie-face,"_ you say with more vehemence than it should be possible to pack into an insult that stupid. Enderman's face falls when he realises he's managed to offend you, which you fail to notice because you have no idea how facial expressions work. You scuttle off after the smell, the others in tow.

After choking out an excessively roundabout apology, Enderman gets you to go as far along the road as possible. Fallen logs and things make it interesting. Finally the trail meanders between the trees. You all duck into the bush, navigating buttress roots, ant troops and general jungle chaos. The nearer you get, the stronger the smell; a little sulphurous, metallic, musty, with overtones of cave and darkness. Gross. Bottle that up and turn it into a perfume that no-one will buy ever.

By your estimate it is approximately forever before the scent trail sinks into a split in the ground. Jealously guarded by bushes, it's hung with vines and inconsiderately lacking a slope. The lumpy stone of its floor is three-ish blocks down, bushes and buttress roots taller than Skeleton lining the rim. You don't care about the drop and leap straight down, which your legs disagree with vehemently. Ow. You manage to be a badass and not shriek. Lowering your head, you grin into the tunnel's depths, where the scent runs off and hides. The slope drops in blocks half-width and as small as quarter-size, wiggling happily but not turning. You can see where it vanishes into depth fog world chunks away. Its current levels of spookiness are pretty disappointing. You'll have to complain to the management! You scuttle in a circle to face the others, who are peering down at you, and raise yourself on your foremost legs to grin up at them. "Hurry up! It's in here but it's not all that spooky yet."

Enderman warps down with a sharp _zzt,_ almost as tall as the pit and facing the others. He helps Creeper and, grudgingly, Sima down, leaving Skeleton to roll her eyes and swing down a vine. He's such a douche sometimes, oh your god. Why can't everyone just get along? So annoying.

Your friend takes the lead again as you head deeper into the tunnel. Sima scatters torchlight all over the walls as it scrambles down the steep slope. You have ridiculous fun chasing the light since running vertically is nothing to you. Creeper navigates carefully, Enderman warps in bright bursts and Skeleton hops down, just glad she doesn't have to fight the forest anymore. It must be so annoying to see with lines. Watching her smack into stuff is great, though.

Pebbles skitter beneath your tarsal claws, fleeing the lights of your eyes. Enderman has to duck as the underground's hands tighten their tunnel chokehold to barely three blocks high. Depth turns to vapour, misting on your setae, attenuating Sima's torch flame until it's a single timid tongue strongly considering running for it. The fire mutters, wringing its hands, flicking from side to side. You can smell anxiety winding itself into the long strands of Sima's black head-setae and the threads of its clothing. Fear murmurs in Creeper's fur, running fingers down her spine so her steps are stiff and silent, her neck bent nearly to the ground. You pride yourself on not being easy to scare, but you feel it too, thick on your tongue and in the joints of your legs. You decide you are not fond of the taste of fear.

It's not the cave. Darkness and daylight are one and the same to you. It's not claustrophobia. Fitting into spaces a coin would have trouble with is fun. This place is a tomb. Its rock is the bones of an ancient. You are sneaking down the throat of a beast, and its fangs have clamped shut behind you. You realise you aren't using the walls anymore.

"Perhaps we should go back up," clatters Creeper at one point, a box of dice shaking in her throat. The slope is evening out.

"Yeah." Skeleton's voice is barely a breeze skimming the stone. She's in front of you, so you can see the indigo glow of her consciousness hanging half outside her skull and twisting around her ribcage.

None of you stop walking.

"Um," whispers Sima after eternity.

A _SCREECH_ of cave noise makes you all jump out of your skin.

You share glances and nervous laughter until the growl of a ghost train reverberates in your guts, leaving you all wide-eyed. "It's, it's cave noise," Creeper explains when Sima looks around with horror on its face. "It, well, it happens." She rattles nervously. "I, um."

"Let's go, we need to-" Enderman stops. "We need to, well." He lifts dinnerplate hands to rake his face. "Let's go." Pushing past the rest of you, he strides onwards, and the hooks behind your mandibles drag you along too. You don't know what's going on. But you and all the others go, because. Because you don't know. Because it's what you need to do! That's all you can call the thing solidifying behind your fangs. A need.

The tunnel tightens.

The depth darkens.

The mist murmurs.

You are shivering. So are the others, but it's not cold. It's not warm. It's not anything.

Sulphur, metal and must clog in your throat. It's like you're walking in slow motion, setae numbed. You can't look anywhere but straight ahead. Ahead, where the dark is blinding, where the walls stop at the edge of oblivion, where the ceiling _yawns_ and the rock spreads its arms and minerals marble the stone. Where you are dwarfed, where _Enderman_ is dwarfed, staring in awe at the cavern gaping around you. Depth fog rolls out of the honeycomb hexagons in the walls, clinging to the cavern's far end. The tapering tip of a stone outcrop leans over a misty abyss, its supports submerged in the dark. Creeper's head rises. Sima turns as it walks with its necks craned. Skeleton hides back inside her skull as her sockets try to scan the expanse. Enderman's mist swirls sluggishly around him. And you, you tuck in your mandibles and close your mouth and widen your eyes because you are in awe and so, so afraid.

You jump out of your skin! _Crash! Crash! Crash!_ Torrents of water burst from the honeycomb walls and fly over the depths to bore into the mist below. Their roar is deafening, cacophony unbearable, and you don't notice the six colours in them because-

"Hello, hello, hello!" a chorus bellows, resounding off the walls, drowning out the water.

"Welcome!"

"Good to see you!"

"_Fayjai, fayjai'n!"_

"_Hajimemashite!"_

"Yes, we- was that- was that Japanese?"

"That's the _third_ time-"

"Oh fucking hell."


End file.
